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Thresholds for Sterol-Limited Growth of Daphnia magna: A Comparative Approach Using 10 Different Sterols

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Abstract

Arthropods are incapable of synthesizing sterols de novo and thus require a dietary source to cover their physiological demands. The most prominent sterol in animal tissues is cholesterol, which is an indispensable structural component of cell membranes and serves as precursor for steroid hormones. Instead of cholesterol, plants and algae contain a variety of different phytosterols. Consequently, herbivorous arthropods have to metabolize dietary phytosterols to cholesterol to meet their requirements for growth and reproduction. Here, we investigated sterol-limited growth responses of the freshwater herbivore Daphnia magna by supplementing a sterol-free diet with increasing amounts of 10 different phytosterols and comparing thresholds for sterol-limited growth. In addition, we analyzed the sterol composition of D. magna to explore sterol metabolic constraints and bioconversion capacities. We show that dietary phytosterols strongly differ in their potential to support somatic growth of D. magna. The dietary threshold concentrations obtained by supplementing the different sterols cover a wide range (3.5–34.4 μg mg C−1) and encompass the one for cholesterol (8.9 μg mg C−1), indicating that certain phytosterols are more efficient in supporting somatic growth than cholesterol (e.g., fucosterol, brassicasterol) while others are less efficient (e.g., dihydrocholesterol, lathosterol). The dietary sterol concentration gradients revealed that the poor quality of particular sterols can be alleviated partially by increasing dietary concentrations, and that qualitative differences among sterols are most pronounced at low to moderate dietary concentrations. We infer that the dietary sterol composition has to be considered in zooplankton nutritional ecology to accurately assess potential sterol limitations under field conditions.

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Acknowledgments

We thank P. Merkel for technical assistance in analyzing sterols. DMC was supported financially by the ‘Young Scholar Fund’ of the University of Konstanz, AW was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG, WA 2,445/8-1).

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Author notes

  1. Sarah Oexle

    Present address: Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology, Evolution and Conservation, Catholic University of Leuven, Charles Deberiotstraat 32, box 2439, 3000, Leuven, Belgium

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Limnological Institute, University of Konstanz, Mainaustrasse 252, 78464, Konstanz, Germany

    Dominik Martin-Creuzburg & Sarah Oexle

  2. Institute for Biochemistry and Biology, Ecology and Ecosystem Modelling, University of Potsdam, Maulbeerallee 2, 14469, Potsdam, Germany

    Alexander Wacker

Authors
  1. Dominik Martin-Creuzburg
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  2. Sarah Oexle
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Correspondence to Dominik Martin-Creuzburg.

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Martin-Creuzburg, D., Oexle, S. & Wacker, A. Thresholds for Sterol-Limited Growth of Daphnia magna: A Comparative Approach Using 10 Different Sterols. J Chem Ecol 40, 1039–1050 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-014-0486-1

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