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Nutritional mode and specialization alter protist consumer diversity effects on prey assemblages

2012; Inter-Research Science Center; Volume: 66; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3354/ame01573

1616-1564

Jan Filip, Lilian‐Lee B. Müller, Helmut Hillebrand, S Moorthi,

Aquatic Ecosystems and Phytoplankton Dynamics

AME Aquatic Microbial Ecology Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsSpecials AME 66:257-269 (2012) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/ame01573 Nutritional mode and specialization alter protist consumer diversity effects on prey assemblages Joanna Filip*, Lilian-Lee Müller, Helmut Hillebrand, Stefanie Moorthi Carl-von-Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), Schleusenstrasse 1, Wilhelmshaven 26328, Germany *Email: joanna.filip@uni-oldenburg.de ABSTRACT: Mixotrophy is a widespread phenomenon and plays an important role in aquatic food webs by increasing the complexity of trophic interactions and enhancing trophic transfer up the food web. Nevertheless, the effects of mixotrophic consumers on lower trophic levels have not been investigated in the framework of recent biodiversity and ecosystem functioning research, although mixotrophic interactions can lead to enhanced variability of those relationships. The effects of ciliate consumer diversity and nutritional mode on algal prey biovolume and evenness as well as consumer biovolume were investigated in 2 freshwater microcosm experiments. Different species compositions in the consumer and algal assemblages of the 2 experiments resulted in partially different interactions. Increasing consumer richness decreased prey biovolume in both experiments. However, heterotrophic consumers decreased prey biovolume and evenness more than mixotrophs in one experiment, driven by a strong grazer that was not present in the other experiment. Consumer presence and richness affected prey evenness differently, preventing competitive dominance among algae in one experiment but leading to unbalanced grazing in an initially more even prey assemblage in the other experiment. Secondary production increased with consumer richness in both experiments but was differently affected by the consumers’ nutritional mode due to altered competitive interactions and niche overlap in different species combinations. The present study demonstrated that consumer-specific characteristics, such as nutritional mode and feeding preferences, may alter consumer diversity effects on prey. KEY WORDS: Mixotrophy · Consumer diversity · Ecosystem functioning · Multitrophic · Traits · Food web · Ciliates · Microalgae Full text in pdf format PreviousNextCite this article as: Filip J, Müller LL, Hillebrand H, Moorthi S (2012) Nutritional mode and specialization alter protist consumer diversity effects on prey assemblages. Aquat Microb Ecol 66:257-269. https://doi.org/10.3354/ame01573 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in AME Vol. 66, No. 3. Online publication date: July 09, 2012 Print ISSN: 0948-3055; Online ISSN: 1616-1564 Copyright © 2012 Inter-Research.