Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Analysis on the stability of plankton in a food web with empirical organism body mass distribution

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Environmental Science and Pollution Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

A Correction to this article was published on 05 November 2022

This article has been updated

Abstract

The mechanism supporting the stability of complex food webs is an important, yet still controversial issue in ecology. Integrating the bioenergetic model with a natural plankton food web with empirical organism body mass distribution, we studied the effects of taxa diversity, nutrient enrichment simulation and connectance on the stability of plankton, and the underlying mechanisms. The behavior and functions of plankton with different body masses in the system were also explored. The results showed that genus richness promoted the temporal stability of community but reduced that of population. Meanwhile, the effects of taxon extinction on community biomass and temporal stability depended on the body masses of those lost taxa. Enrichment decreased phytoplankton and zooplankton community stability directly by increasing the temporal variability of biomass and indirectly by reducing taxa diversity. Enrichment preferentially caused phytoplankton taxa with the highest individual biomass to go extinct and the ones with smaller to increase in biomass. The effects, as well as the underlying mechanisms of connectance on phytoplankton and zooplankton stability were different. High connectance promoted the persistence and biomasses of both zooplankton and small-bodied phytoplankton but reduced those of larger-bodied phytoplankton. The results and methodology in this research will be helpful in understanding and analyzing the stability of plankton communities.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The data and materials that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Change history

References

  • Baert JM, De Laender F, Sabbe K, Janssen CR (2016) Biodiversity increases functional and compositional resistance, but decreases resilience in phytoplankton communities. Ecology 97:3433–3440

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berlow EL, Dunne JA, Martinez ND, Stark PB, Williams RJ, Brose U (2009) Simple prediction of interaction strengths in complex food webs. P Natl Acad Sci USA 106:187–191

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Boit A, Martinez ND, Williams RJ, Gaedke U (2012) Mechanistic theory and modelling of complex food-web dynamics in Lake Constance. Ecol Lett 15:594–602

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boyce DG, Frank KT, Leggett WC (2015) From mice to elephants: overturning the ‘one size fits all’ paradigm in marine plankton food chains. Ecol Lett 18:504–515

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brose U (2008) Complex food webs prevent competitive exclusion among producer species. P Roy Soc B-Biol Sci 275:2507–2514

    Google Scholar 

  • Brose U, Williams RJ, Martinez ND (2006) Allometric scaling enhances stability in complex food webs. Ecol Lett 9:1228–1236

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown JH, Gillooly JF, Allen AP, Savage VM, West GB (2004) Toward a metabolic theory of ecology. Ecology 85:1771–1789

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cardinale BJ, Duffy JE, Gonzalez A et al (2012) Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity. Nature 486:59–67

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Cattin MF, Bersier LF, Banasek-Richter C, Baltensperger R, Gabriel JP (2004) Phylogenetic constraints and adaptation explain food-web structure. Nature 427:835–839

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Chen BZ, Liu HB (2011) Temporal stability of marine phytoplankton in a subtropical coastal environment. Aquat Ecol 45:427–438

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen JE, Newman CM (1985) A stochastic theory of community food webs I. Models and aggregated data. P Roy Soc B-Biol Sci 224:449–461

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen JE, Briand F, Newman CM (1990) Community food webs: data and theory. Springer, Berlin

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Corcoran AA, Boeing WJ (2012) Biodiversity increases the productivity and stability of phytoplankton communities. PLoS ONE 7:e49397

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • De Castro F, Gaedke U (2008) The metabolism of lake plankton does not support the metabolic theory of ecology. Oikos 117:1218–1226

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Domínguez-García V, Dakos V, Kéfi S (2019) Unveiling dimensions of stability in complex ecological networks. P Natl Acad Sci USA 116:25714–25720

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Donohue I, Petchey OL, Montoya JM et al (2013) On the dimensionality of ecological stability. Ecol Lett 16:421–429

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Downing AL, Brown BL, Leibold MA (2014) Multiple diversity–stability mechanisms enhance population and community stability in aquatic food webs. Ecology 95:173–184

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dudgeon D, Arthington AH, Gessner MO et al (2006) Freshwater biodiversity: importance, threats, status and conservation challenges. Biol Rev 81:163–182

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dunne JA, Williams RJ, Martinez ND (2002) Network structure and biodiversity loss in food webs: robustness increases with connectance. Ecol Lett 5:558–567

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Enquist BJ, West GB, Charnov EL, Brown JH (1999) Allometric scaling of production and life-history variation in vascular plants. Nature 401:907–911

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Filstrup CT, Hillebrand H, Heathcote AJ, Harpole WS, Downing JA (2014) Cyanobacteria dominance influences resource use efficiency and community turnover in phytoplankton and zooplankton communities. Ecol Lett 17:464–474

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fu T, Chen B, Ji W, Chen H, Chen W, Dong X et al (2016) Size structure of phytoplankton community and its response to environmental factors in Xiamen Bay, China. Environ Earth Sci 75:1–12

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fussmann KE, Schwarzmüller F, Brose U, Jousset A, Rall BC (2014) Ecological stability in response to warming. Nat Clim Change 4:206–210

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gamfeldt L, Hillebrand H, Jonsson PR (2005) Species richness changes across two trophic levels simultaneously affect prey and consumer biomass. Ecol Lett 8:696–703

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Giller PS, Hillebrand H, Berninger UG et al (2004) Biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning: emerging issues and their experimental test in aquatic environments. Oikos 104:423–436

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gonzalez A, Descamps-Julien B (2004) Population and community variability in randomly fluctuating environments. Oikos 106:105–116

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hector A, Hautier Y, Saner P et al (2010) General stabilizing effects of plant diversity on grassland productivity through population asynchrony and overyielding. Ecology 91:2213–2220

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Houlahan JE, Currie DJ, Cottenie K, Cumming GS, Findlay CS, Fuhlendorf SD et al (2018) Negative relationships between species richness and temporal variability are common but weak in natural systems. Ecology 99:2592–2604

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hu HJ, Wei YX (2006) The freshwater algae of China: systematic, taxonomy and ecology. Science Press, Beijing

    Google Scholar 

  • Hudson LN, Reuman DC (2013) A cure for the plague of parameters: constraining models of complex population dynamics with allometries. P Roy Soc B-Biol Sci 280:20131901

    Google Scholar 

  • Iles AC, Novak M (2016) Complexity increases predictability in allometrically constrained food webs. Am Nat 188:87–98

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jacquet C, Moritz C, Morissette L, Legagneux P, Massol F, Archambault P, Gravel D (2016) No complexity–stability relationship in empirical ecosystems. Nat Commun 7:1–8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jiang L, Pu ZC (2009) Different effects of species diversity on temporal stability in single-trophic and multitrophic communities. Am Nat 174:651–659

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jørgensen SE, Nielsen SN, Jørgensen LA (1991) Handbook of ecological parameters and ecotoxicology. Elsevier, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  • Kath NJ, Boit A, Guill C, Gaedke U (2018) Accounting for activity respiration results in realistic trophic transfer efficiencies in allometric trophic network (ATN) models. Theor Ecol 11:453–463

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Killen SS, Costa I, Brown JA, Gamperl A (2007) Little left in the tank: metabolic scaling in marine teleosts and its implications for aerobic scope. P Roy Soc B-Biol Sci 274:431–438

    Google Scholar 

  • Killen SS, Atkinson D, Glazier DS (2010) The intraspecific scaling of metabolic rate with body mass in fishes depends on lifestyle and temperature. Ecol Lett 13:184–193

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim MS, Kim KH, Hwang SJ, Lee TK (2021) Role of algal community stability in harmful algal blooms in river-connected lakes. Microb Ecol 82:309–318

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lee Y, Jung J, Kim TW, Yang EJ, Park J (2021) Phytoplankton growth rates in the Amundsen Sea (Antarctica) during summer: The role of light. Environ Res 207:112165

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li W, Stevens MHH (2010) How enrichment, ecosystem size, and their effects on species richness co-determine the stability of microcosm communities. Oikos 119:686–695

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lin Y, Sutherland WJ (2014) Interaction modification effects on ecological networks are affected by ratio dependence and network topology. J Theor Biol 363:151–157

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Litchman E, Klausmeier CA (2008) Trait-based community ecology of phytoplankton. Annu Rev Ecol Evol S 39:615–639

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lürling M (2021) Grazing resistance in phytoplankton. Hydrobiologia 848:237–249

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • May RM (1972) Will a large complex system be stable? Nature 238:413–414

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • McGrady-Steed J, Harris PM, Morin PJ (1997) Biodiversity regulates ecosystem predictability. Nature 390:162–165

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Otto SB, Rail BC, Brose U (2007) Allometric degree distributions facilitate food-web stability. Nature 450:1226–1229

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Parparov A, Gal G (2017) Quantifying ecological stability: from community to the lake ecosystem. Ecosystems 20:1015–1028

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pawar S, Dell AI, Savage VM (2012) Dimensionality of consumer search space drives trophic interaction strengths. Nature 486:485–489

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Petchey OL, McPhearson PT, Casey TM, Morin PJ (1999) Environmental warming alters food-web structure and ecosystem function. Nature 402:69–72

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ptacnik R, Solimini AG, Andersen T et al (2008) Diversity predicts stability and resource use efficiency in natural phytoplankton communities. P Natl Acad Sci USA 105:5134–5138

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ptacnik R, Moorthi SD, Hillebrand H (2010) Hutchinson reversed, or why there need to be so many species. Adv Ecol Res 43:1–43

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rall BC, Guill C, Brose U (2008) Food-web connectance and predator interference dampen the paradox of enrichment. Oikos 117:202–213

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reynolds CS, Huszar V, Kruk C, Naselli-Flores L, Melo S (2002) Towards a functional classification of the freshwater phytoplankton. J Plankton R 24:417–428

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Riede JO, Rall BC, Banasek-Richter C et al (2010) Scaling of food-web properties with diversity and complexity across ecosystems. In: Advances in ecological research. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 139-170

  • Romanuk TN, Zhou Y, Brose U, Berlow EL, Williams RJ, Martinez ND (2009) Predicting invasion success in complex ecological networks. Philos T Roy Soc B 364:1743–1754

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosenzweig ML (1971) Paradox of enrichment: destabilization of exploitation of ecosystems in ecological time. Science 171:385–387

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Rosenzweig ML, MacArthur RH (1963) Graphical representation and stability conditions of predator-prey interactions. Am Nat 97:209–223

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schabhüttl S, Hingsamer P, Weigelhofer G, Hein T, Weigert A, Striebel M (2013) Temperature and species richness effects in phytoplankton communities. Oecologia 171:527–536

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schmidtke A, Gaedke U, Weithoff G (2010) A mechanistic basis for under-yielding in phytoplankton communities. Ecology 91:212–221

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shurin JB, Arnott SE, Hillebrand H, Longmuir A, Pinel-Alloul B, Winder M, Yan ND (2007) Diversity-stability relationship varies with latitude in zooplankton. Ecol Lett 10:127–134

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Staniczenko P, Lewis OT, Jones NS, Reed-Tsochas F (2010) Structural dynamics and robustness of food webs. Ecol Lett 13:891–899

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Steiner CF, Darcy-Hall TL, Dorn NJ, Garcia EA, Mittelbach GG, Wojdak JM (2005a) The influence of consumer diversity and indirect facilitation on trophic level biomass and stability. Oikos 110:556–566

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Steiner CF, Long ZT, Krumins JA, Morin PJ (2005b) Temporal stability of aquatic food webs: partitioning the effects of species diversity, species composition and enrichment. Ecol Lett 8:819–828

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stouffer DB, Bascompte J (2010) Understanding food-web persistence from local to global scales. Ecol Lett 13:154–161

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stouffer DB, Camacho J, Guimera R, Ng CA, Amaral LAN (2005) Quantitative patterns in the structure of model and empirical food webs. Ecology 86:1301–1311

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tian W, Zhang H, Zhao L, Xiong Y, Huang H (2016) Effects of environmental factors on the temporal stability of phytoplankton biomass in a eutrophic Man-Made lake. Water 8:582

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Tian W, Zhang HY, Zhao L, Zhang FF, Huang H (2017) Phytoplankton diversity effects on community biomass and stability along nutrient gradients in a eutrophic lake. Int J Env Res Pub He 14:95

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tilman D (1999) The ecological consequences of changes in biodiversity: a search for general principles. Ecology 80:1455–1474

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilman D, Reich PB, Knops JMH (2006) Biodiversity and ecosystem stability in a decade-long grassland experiment. Nature 441:629–632

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Tockner K, Stanford JA (2002) Riverine flood plains: present state and future trends. Environ Conserv 29:308–330

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vallina SM, Cermeno P, Dutkiewicz S, Loreau M, Montoya JM (2017) Phytoplankton functional diversity increases ecosystem productivity and stability. Ecol Model 361:184–196

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Venail PA, Alexandrou MA, Oakley TH, Cardinale BJ (2013) Shared ancestry influences community stability by altering competitive interactions: evidence from a laboratory microcosm experiment using freshwater green algae. P Roy Soc B-Biol Sci 280:20131548

    Google Scholar 

  • Vermaat JE, Dunne JA, Gilbert AJ (2009) Major dimensions in food-web structure properties. Ecology 90:278–282

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walz N (1995) Rotifer populations in plankton communities: energetics and life history strategies. Experientia 51:437–453

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Warren PH, Lawton JH (1987) Invertebrate predator-prey body size relationships: an explanation for upper triangular food webs and patterns in food web structure? Oecologia 74:231–235

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Weyhenmeyer GA, Peter H, Willen E (2013) Shifts in phytoplankton species richness and biomass along a latitudinal gradient-consequences for relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Freshwater Biol 58:612–623

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams RJ, Martinez ND (2000) Simple rules yield complex food webs. Nature 404:180–183

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Xu Q, Yang X, Yan Y, Wang S, Loreau M, Jiang L (2021) Consistently positive effect of species diversity on ecosystem, but not population, temporal stability. Ecol Lett 24:2256–2266

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yachi S, Loreau M (1999) Biodiversity and ecosystem productivity in a fluctuating environment: the insurance hypothesis. P Natl Acad Sci USA 96:1463–1468

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Yodzis P, Innes S (1992) Body size and consumer-resource dynamics. Am Nat 139:1151–1175

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang ZS, Huang XF (1991) Research methods of freshwater plankton. Science Press, Beijing. (in Chinese)

  • Zhang QG, Zhang DY (2006) Species richness destabilizes ecosystem functioning in experimental aquatic microcosms. Oikos 112:218–226

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhao L, Zhang H, O’Gorman EJ, Tian W et al (2016) Weighting and indirect effects identify keystone species in food webs. Ecol Lett 19:1032–1040

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We extend our thanks to Edmond Sanganyado and James Buckley for the assistance in language editing.

Funding

This study was supported financially by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31901146), the Chinese National Major Science and Technology Program for Water Pollution Control and Treatment (No. 2017ZX07101002), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2021MS047).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Center for Engineering Ecology and Nonlinear Science, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, 102206, People’s Republic of China

    Wang Tian, Huayong Zhang, Zhongyu Wang, Yonglan Tian & Tousheng Huang

Authors
  1. Wang Tian
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Huayong Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Zhongyu Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Yonglan Tian
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Tousheng Huang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

WT and HZ were responsible for the research design. WT, ZW, YT, and TH conducted the field investigations and measurements. WT carried out the numerical simulations, drafted the main text, and prepared the figures. WT and HZ analyzed the results. All authors were involved in discussions and editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Huayong Zhang.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Responsible Editor: Thomas Hein

Publisher's note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

The original online version of this article was revised: In Equations 1, 2, 3 and 4 the letters i, a, m and j should be subscript to follow correct presentation.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 46 KB)

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Tian, W., Zhang, H., Wang, Z. et al. Analysis on the stability of plankton in a food web with empirical organism body mass distribution. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 21327–21343 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23696-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23696-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation