Abstract
Damming a stream inserts a lentic system (an impoundment or reservoir) into a lotic system, changing downstream hydrological, biogeochemical, and ecological processes. One such ecological effect of damming is to create a resource subsidy of easily captured and consumed zooplankton, which are preyed upon by filter-feeders and visual predators. In this study, we sought to predict the density of lentic zooplankton subsidizing downstream habitats using water quality parameters as an alternative to microscopy. We monitored zooplankton subsidy from 4 polymictic reservoirs over 3 summers and assessed 22 water quality variables for their ability to predict subsidies, ultimately finding that about half (48.3%) of the variation in zooplankton subsidy can be predicted using the water quality variables we assessed. While this level of variation explained is not sufficient to replace traditional microscopy for quantifying zooplankton density, conductivity stood out as an important and potentially useful predictor of zooplankton subsidy, and so might be very useful as a screening tool for identifying lentic–lotic transitions with higher subsidies. We also detected three different water quality regimes (high conductivity, high-colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), and a remaining category) during the study, with differences in the density of zooplankton among these water quality regimes, suggesting that the reservoir’s water quality does impact downstream zooplankton subsidy.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all of the undergraduate members of the Ecological Diversity Group at Rowan University that contributed to the data collection for this study, particularly Frank Rollo, who compiled the lake statistics and was initially involved in writing this manuscript.
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This work was funded by Rowan University and with personal funds by Nathan Ruhl, Michael Grove, and Courtney Richmond.
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NR, MG, and CR contributed to the study conception and design. NR, DR, MG and CR contributed to field sampling and data collection in the lab. NR, CR, DR, and SI conducted the statistical analyses, produced the figures, and wrote the manuscript. All authors read, edited, and approved the final manuscript.
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Nathan Ruhl declares that he is a consultant to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium for the management of cyanobacterial blooms in inland waters within the state. The authors declare that there are no other competing interests.
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Ruhl, N., Ruggiero, D., Iuliucci, S. et al. Predicting the density of zooplankton subsidy to a stream with multiple impoundments using water quality parameters. Aquat Sci 85, 29 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00027-022-00931-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00027-022-00931-x