The use of egg shells to infer the historical presence of copepods in alpine lakes

Abstract

Copepods (Class Crustacea, Order Copepoda) are rarely included in paleoecological studies of lakes because they lack long-lasting exoskeletal remains. We describe the remains of eggs (egg shells) from Hesperodiaptomus copepods that are well preserved and abundant in alpine lake sediments. We demonstrate that the egg shells are the remains of Hesperodiaptomus eggs based on (i) the similar size and morphology of egg shells collected from sediments and those produced from the hatching of eggs obtained from laboratory-maintained Hesperodiaptomus, and (ii) the finding that diapausing eggs collected from lake sediments and hatched in the laboratory produced copepod nauplii that were morphologically indistinguishable from those hatched from eggs produced by laboratory-maintained Hesperodiaptomus. Egg shells were approximately two orders of magnitude more abundant in sediment cores than were viable diapausing eggs, making egg shells superior to viable diapausing eggs for quantifying the historical presence and abundance of Hesperodiaptomus. These results have important implications for alpine lake restoration as egg shells can be used to identify lakes in which Hesperodiaptomus was eliminated by fish introductions but has failed to return after fish eradication, lakes in which the pre-disturbance conditions are likely to be restored only by reintroductions of this important taxon.