Abstract
Zooplankton communities are important components of aquatic food webs in part because they recycle nutrients and carbon. Lacking a complete understanding of the composition of organic material cycled by zooplankton, the breadth of their biogeochemical and ecological contributions to aquatic ecosystems is uncertain. Here, we show that large-bodied zooplankton communities from three diverse biomes across North America release dissolved organic matter (DOM) that is chemically complex. We applied optical techniques and ultrahigh-resolution mass spectrometry to samples of DOM released by zooplankton in leachate incubations and compared these to the composition of aquatic DOM from ambient environments. The leachates captured the DOM released from zooplankton before exposure to environmental conditions that alter its chemical composition. Surprisingly, leachates from all sites contained substantial quantities of all five major fluorescence peaks representing distinct DOM compositions. When averaged, leachates consistently had low optical absorbance and elevated protein-like fluorescence, relative to lake water. Ultrahigh-resolution characterization showed that leachate DOM contained over 7000 detected molecular formulae (MF), many of which were N- and S- rich, with > 10% MF unique to the leachate and not detected in lake DOM. Together, these results help to define the composition of animal DOM inputs, a widely-overlooked end-member in aquatic DOM studies. Given the chemical breadth of zooplankton-derived DOM, this source may partially explain how N- and S- rich, reduced MF persist in these environments. These findings further underscore the rich chemical diversity of linkages between animals and lower trophic levels.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the First Nations of Treaty 4 and 7 territories for sharing the land on which a portion of this research was conducted. We thank Nicolas Fortin St. Gelais and Richard Labrie for constructive feedback that improved this manuscript, and Arni Litt and Arielle Tonus Ellis for providing zooplankton samples from Lake Washington. A Postdoctoral fellowship from the Delta Science Foundation (to SEJ) supported this research. This material is based upon work supported by the Delta Stewardship Council Delta Science Program under Grant No. (5298). The contents of this material do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Delta Stewardship Council, nor does mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation for use by the USGS or other contributing institutions. This project was also supported by funding provided to KF from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, to RGMS from the National Aeronautics and Space Agency Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE NNX15AU07A), to DEB from the University of Washington and the U.S. Geological Survey LandCarbon Program and NASA-ABoVE (Project 14-TE14-0012), to RGS from the U.S. Geological Survey Land Carbon Program and Water Resources Mission Areas, and to MJB from the Canada Research Chairs program and the University of Lethbridge. A portion of this work was performed in the Ion Cyclotron Resonance User Facility at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, which is supported by the National Science Foundation Division of Chemistry and Division of Materials Research through DMR 16-44779, and the State of Florida. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The data generated as part of this study are available in the supplementary material and through Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/8JYAS).
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Johnston, S.E., Finlay, K., Spencer, R.G.M. et al. Zooplankton release complex dissolved organic matter to aquatic environments. Biogeochemistry 157, 313–325 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-021-00876-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-021-00876-7