Abstract
A laboratory microcosm experiment was conducted to examine the roles of food quantity and food quality on the competitive abilities of clones of the keystone aquatic zooplankter, Daphnia pulicaria. Using methods of resurrection ecology, clones were established by hatching dormant eggs from sediment layers of a lake (South Center, MN, U.S.A) that were separated by centuries of environmental change (nutrient enrichment). Two sets of paired clones (“modern” vs. “ancient”) were competed against each other in a 2 × 2 factorial design of high/low food quantity and high/low food quality. Experimental carbon:phosphorus (C:P) ratios were designed to mimic food quantity and food quality parameters respective to each of the two time periods from which the clones were extracted to test whether clones are competitively superior under conditions representative of the time period in which they existed. Contrary to predictions, we found that “modern” clones were able to outcompete “ancient” clones under all food treatments. We discuss potential mechanisms (i.e., mutational input, viability of long-dormant eggs, differences in phenotypic plasticity) that may have differentially impacted the performance of experimental clones. Our results should aid in deciphering microevolutionary dynamics observed in resurrection ecology studies, a powerful tool that can illuminate adaptive dynamics of organisms to environmental changes on long-term (centuries-long) temporal scales.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baird, N. A., P. D. Etter, T. S. Atwood, M. C. Currey, A. L. Shiver, Z. A. Lewis, E. U. Selker, W. A. Cresko & E. A. Johnson, 2008. Rapid SNP discovery and genetic mapping using sequenced RAD markers. PLoS One 3: e3376.
Bennington, C. C., J. B. McGraw & M. C. Varek, 1991. Ecological genetic variation in seed banks. II. Phenotypic and genetic differences between young and old subpopulations of Luzula parviflora. Journal of Ecology 79: 627–643.
Cáceres, C. E., 1998. Interspecific variation in the abundance, production and emergence of Daphnia diapausing eggs. Ecology 79: 1699–1710.
Cheah, K. S. E. & D. J. Osborne, 1978. DNA lesions occur with loss of viability in embryos of aging rye seed. Nature 272: 593–599.
Chwedorzewska, K. J., P. T. Bednarek, R. Lewandowska, P. Krajewski & J. Puchalski, 2006. Studies on genetic changes in rye samples (Secale cereale L.) maintained in a seed bank. Cellular & Molecular Biology Letters 11: 338–347.
Cousyn, C., L. De Meester, J. K. Colbourne, L. Brendonck, D. Verschuren & F. Volckaert, 2001. Rapid, local adaptation of zooplankton behavior to changes in predation pressure in the absence of neutral genetic changes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. 98: 6256–6260.
Decaestecker, E., S. Gaba, J. A. M. Raeymaekers, R. Stoks, L. Van Kerckhoven, D. Ebert & L. De Meester, 2007. Host-parasite ‘Red Queen’ dynamics archived in pond sediment. Nature 450: 870–874.
DeMott, W. R., R. D. Gulati & K. Siewertsen, 1998. Effects of phosphorus-deficient diets on the carbon and phosphorus balance of Daphnia magna. Limnology and Oceanography 43: 1147–1161.
Frisch, D., P. M. Morton, P. Roy Chowdhury, B. W. Culver, J. K. Colbourne, L. J. Weider & P. D. Jeyasingh, 2014. A millennial-scale chronicle of evolutionary responses to cultural eutrophication in Daphnia. Ecology Letters 17: 360–368.
Grover, J. P., 1997. Resource competition. Chapman & Hall, New York.
Hairston Jr., N. G., R. A. Van Brunt, C. M. Kearns & D. R. Engstrom, 1995. Age and survivorship of diapausing eggs in a sediment egg bank. Ecology 76: 1706–1711.
Harmon, J. P., N. A. Moran & A. R. Ives, 2009. Species response to environmental change: impacts of food web interactions and evolution. Science 323: 1347–1350.
Hebert, P. D. N. & M. J. Beaton, 1993. Methodologies for allozyme analysis using Cellulose acetate electrophoresis. A practical handbook. Helena Laboratories, Beaumont.
Hedrick, P. W., 2006. Genetic polymorphisms in heterogenous environments: the age of genomics. Annual Review Ecology Evolution & Systematics 37: 67–93.
Jeyasingh, P. D., L. J. Weider & R. W. Sterner, 2009. Genetically-based trade-offs in response to stoichiometric food quality influence competition in a keystone aquatic herbivore. Ecology Letters 12: 1229–1237.
Kareiva, P. M., J. G. Kingsolver & R. B. Huey, 1992. Biotic interactions and global change. Sinauer & Associates, Sunderland, MA.
Kerfoot, W. C. & L. J. Weider, 2004. Experimental paleoecology (resurrection ecology): chasing Van Valen’s Red Queen hypothesis. Limnology & Oceanography 49: 1300–1316.
Kerfoot, W. C., J. A. Robbins & L. J. Weider, 1999. A new approach to historical reconstruction: combining descriptive and experimental paleolimnology. Limnology & Oceanography 44: 1232–1247.
Kilham, S. S., D. A. Kreeger, S. G. Lynn, C. E. Goulden & L. Herrera, 1998. COMBO: a defined freshwater culture medium for algae and zooplankton. Hydrobiologia 377: 147–159.
Levin, D. A., 1990. The seed bank as a source of genetic novelty in plants. American Naturalist 135: 563–572.
Marcus, N. H., R. Lutz, W. Burnett & P. Cable, 1994. Age, viability and vertical distribution of zooplankton resting eggs from an anoxic basin: evidence of an egg bank. Limnology & Oceanography 39: 154–158.
McGraw, J. B., 1993. Ecological genetic variation in seed banks. IV. Differentiation of extant and seed bank-derived populations of Eriophorum vaginatum. Arctic & Alpine Research 25: 45–49.
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, 2011. Sentinel Lake Assessment Report South Center Lake (13-0027) Chisago County, Minnesota. St. Paul, MN, http://www.pca.state.mn.us.
Orsini, L., K. Schwenk, L. De Meester, J. K. Colbourne, M. E. Pfrender & L. J. Weider, 2013. The evolutionary time machine: using dormant propagules to forecast how populations can adapt to changing environments. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 28: 274–282.
Schoen, D. J., J. L. David & T. M. Bataillon, 1998. Deleterious mutation accumulation and the regeneration of genetic resources. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 95: 394–399.
Tilman, D., 1982. Resource competition and community structure. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Vavrek, M. C., J. B. McGraw & C. C. Bennington, 1991. Ecological genetic variation in seed banks. III. Phenotypic and genetic differences between young and old seed populations of Carex bigelowii. Journal of Ecology 79: 645–662.
Visser, M., 2008. Keeping up with a warming world; assessing the rate of adaptation to climate change. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B 275: 649–659.
Weider, L. J., W. Lampert, M. Wessels, J. K. Colbourne & P. Limburg, 1997. Long-term genetic shifts in a microcrustacean egg bank associated with anthropogenic changes in the Lake Constance ecosystem. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B 264: 1613–1618.
Weider, L. J., W. Makino, K. Acharya, K. L. Glenn, M. Kyle, J. Urabe & J. J. Elser, 2005. Genotype x environment interactions, stoichiometric food quality effects, and clonal coexistence in Daphnia pulex. Oecologia 143: 537–547.
Wolf, H. G. & L. J. Weider, 1991. Do life-history parameters of Daphnia as determined in the laboratory correctly predict species successions in the field? Verhandlungen des Internationalen Verein Limnologie 24: 2799–2801.
Acknowledgments
Funding for this study was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF-IOS-OEI) collaborative Grants #0924289 and #1256881 to L.J.W. and Grant #0924401 to P.D.J. We thank the staff at the U. of Minnesota LacCORE facility, in particular R. O’Grady, for assisting with logistics during the field sampling. We thank B. Culver for lab assistance. We thank three anonymous reviewers for constructive comments that improved our manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Handling editor: John Havel
Philip K. Morton and Dagmar Frisch have contributed equally to this work.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Morton, P.K., Frisch, D., Jeyasingh, P.D. et al. Out with the old, in with the new? Younger Daphnia clones are competitively superior over centuries-old ancestors. Hydrobiologia 749, 43–52 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-014-2145-5
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-014-2145-5