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Does stocking of filter-feeding fish for production have a cascading effect on zooplankton and ecological state? A study of fourteen (sub)tropical Chinese reservoirs with contrasting nutrient concentrations

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Abstract

Stocking of filter-feeding fish is a common tool used in Chinese reservoirs to increase fish production because of low natural recruitment. Whether such stocking has important negative effects on zooplankton with cascading effects on phytoplankton is debated. We compared the zooplankton communities in fourteen reservoirs with different nutrient concentrations and fish densities. Both chlorophyll a (Chla) and fish catch were positively related with total phosphorus (TP), whereas zooplankton biomass did not show a similar relationship with TP. Zooplankton seemed to be influenced by fish as high fish catches coincided with a low proportion of calanoids of the total copepod biomass, a high proportion of rotifers of the total zooplankton biomass, a low zooplankton:phytoplankton biomass ratio, and the absence of Daphnia irrespective of TP concentration. Both zooplankton biomass and most of the zooplankton:phytoplankton biomass ratios were among the lowest reported in the literature for the nutrient range studied. Furthermore, the Chla:TP ratio was higher than what is typically observed in temperate lakes. We conclude that top-down control of zooplankton is of key importance in reservoirs in South China where frequent stocking of filter-feeding fish seems to contribute to poor water quality in the form of higher algal biomass and reduced clarity.

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Acknowledgments

Support from Chinese NSF Grants (No.31170437 and No.31170436) is appreciated. EJ was supported by the EU FP-7 project REFRESH (Adaptive strategies to Mitigate the Impacts of Climate Change on European Freshwater Ecosystems, Contract No.: 244121), the MARS project (Managing Aquatic ecosystems and water Resources under multiple Stress) funded under the 7th EU Framework Programme, Theme 6 (Environment including Climate Change), Contract No.: 603378 (http://www.mars-project.eu), CLEAR, CRES, and CIRCE.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, China

    Qiuqi Lin, Xiaojun Jiang & Bo-Ping Han

  2. Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, 8600, Silkeborg, Denmark

    Erik Jeppesen

  3. Sino-Danish Centre for Education and Research, Beijing, 100049, China

    Erik Jeppesen

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  1. Qiuqi Lin
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  2. Xiaojun Jiang
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Correspondence to Qiuqi Lin or Bo-Ping Han.

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Lin, Q., Jiang, X., Han, BP. et al. Does stocking of filter-feeding fish for production have a cascading effect on zooplankton and ecological state? A study of fourteen (sub)tropical Chinese reservoirs with contrasting nutrient concentrations. Hydrobiologia 736, 115–125 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-014-1896-3

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