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Zooplankton community dynamics along the bigheaded carp invasion front in the Upper Mississippi River

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Abstract

Invasive Silver Hypophthalmichthys molitrix and Bighead Carp H. nobilis (collectively bigheaded carp) regularly alter zooplankton communities in lentic systems but dynamics in lotic systems are less understood. Here, we investigated trends in zooplankton communities, densities, and biomass in pools 14–20 of the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) across a gradient of bigheaded carp presence and relative abundance during 2016–2018. We explored the effects of bigheaded carp presence on zooplankton communities using non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) and assessed taxa-specific relationships with bigheaded carp relative abundance using ordinary least-squares regression with an indicator variable for bigheaded carp presence. Zooplankton communities in the UMR were dominated by rotifers and crustacean zooplankton densities were low, making up only 2% of the community density. Zooplankton communities differed where bigheaded carp were present. Density and biomass of cladocerans and copepods were both reduced where bigheaded carp were present but copepods increased with bigheaded carp relative abundance. Ostracod biomass increased in the presence of bigheaded carp whereas rotifers declined with bigheaded carp relative abundance. Low crustacean zooplankton densities in the UMR may limit larval/juvenile fish growth and recruitment regardless of bigheaded carp, but further declines in the crustacean community due to expanding bigheaded carp populations are concerning.

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Data availability

The datasets generated and analyzed in this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The code files used for analyses in this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Partial funding for this project was provided by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and US Geological Survey. We thank the numerous technicians that spent countless hours assisting with both bigheaded carp electrofishing surveys and zooplankton sample collection and processing. We also thank P. Dixon for his consultation on the analyses for this study and G. Wilkinson for her consultation on our zooplankton sample processing protocols. Last, we thank the managers and staff of the Kibbe Field Station for providing housing.

Funding

Partial financial support was received from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (Grant #14CRDFBGSCHO0001) and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (Grant #F16AP00791; F17AP00923).

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  1. Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA

    Nathan A. Tillotson, Michael J. Weber & Clay L. Pierce

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  1. Nathan A. Tillotson
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  2. Michael J. Weber
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Correspondence to Michael J. Weber.

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Tillotson, N.A., Weber, M.J. & Pierce, C.L. Zooplankton community dynamics along the bigheaded carp invasion front in the Upper Mississippi River. Hydrobiologia 849, 1659–1675 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-022-04809-9

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