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Sustained primary production with changing phytoplankton assemblages in a semiarid wetland

  • PHYTOPLANKTON
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Abstract

This study has two main objectives, the first being the determination of net phytoplankton primary production to explain the phytoplankton’s function in a wetland carbon cycle, while the second objective is to relate this function with the phytoplankton assemblage composition. The annual variation in the phytoplankton production was monitored monthly for more than a year (2007–2008) in the semiarid eutrophic, hydrologically-perturbed “Tablas de Daimiel” National Park wetland. The phytoplankton fraction considered in this study comprised all organisms between the size 3 and 100 μm. The total biomass of phytoplankton was obtained by counting algae and calculating their volume, while net primary production and respiration were quantified by in situ incubations with the Winkler method. The respiration ranged from undetectable to 0.07 mgO2 l−1 h−1; net photosynthesis reached 0.20 mgO2 l−1 h−1. Net primary production was maximum at the end of the warm period (October 2007), and other peaks occurred at the start of summer (July 2007) or spring (March 2008). When maximum production took place, phytoplankton was mainly composed of small fast-growing chlorophytes (Tetraselmis cf. fontiana or Chlamydomonas sp.), in addition to some of the large, S-strategist algae (Peridinium umbonatum, Microcystis flos-aquae, Euglena sp.). The phytoplankton metabolism in “Tablas de Daimiel” was autotrophic as a whole due to changing contributions of algal groups. Only chlorophyte biomass was statistically related to net primary production. The conclusion reached is that this shallow eutrophic semiarid wetland possessed an annual net autotrophic production of phytoplankton fraction resulting from the small, fast-growing algae enhanced by hydrological perturbations that interrupted the autogenic course of S strategists.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of the Environment and Ministry of the Science for projects P-81/05 and CGL2006-02891. This research was also supported by Consejería de Innovación, Ciencia y Empresa, Junta de Andalucía (Excelencia project P07-CVI-02598). Moreover, the study has been possible; thanks to the fellowship awarded to María Mercedes Barón Rodriguez by the University of Valencia. We are indebted to colleagues from the Aquatic Ecology Group (the Institute of Natural Resources, CSIC) for their help in the field and for the laboratory work, and to Dr Nuria Navarro (Univ. Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain) for the loan of the titration equipment. This study was presented as a contributed article at the Bat Sheva de Rothschild seminar on Phytoplankton in the Physical Environment—The 15th Workshop of the International Association of Phytoplankton Taxonomy and Ecology, IAP (Israel).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Integrative Ecology Group, Institute Cavanilles of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Carmen Rojo, Maria Mercedes Barón-Rodríguez & Maria A. Rodrigo

  2. Aquatic Ecology Group, Institute of Natural Resources, CSIC, Madrid, Spain

    Miguel Álvarez-Cobelas

Authors
  1. Carmen Rojo
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  2. Maria Mercedes Barón-Rodríguez
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  3. Miguel Álvarez-Cobelas
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  4. Maria A. Rodrigo
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Correspondence to Carmen Rojo.

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Guest editors: T. Zohary, J. Padisák & L. Naselli-Flores / Phytoplankton in the Physical Environment: Papers from the 15th Workshop of the International Association for Phytoplankton Taxonomy and Ecology (IAP), held at the Ramot Holiday Resort on the Golan Heights, Israel, 23–30 November 2008

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Rojo, C., Barón-Rodríguez, M.M., Álvarez-Cobelas, M. et al. Sustained primary production with changing phytoplankton assemblages in a semiarid wetland. Hydrobiologia 639, 55–62 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-009-0017-1

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