Summary
A steady state, radiotracer technique was used to study the original source of the carbon in zooplankton. The experiments were started in filtered lake water with added inorganic radiocarbon. At the beginning of the experiments, a proportionally insignificant volume of unfiltered water was introduced into the culture, together with some ovigerous zooplankton individuals. Since the radioactivity: carbon ratio in the dissolved inorganic carbon was kept constant, a similar ratio would be expected to develop in the autotrophic phytoplankton. The same ratio would then be expected to develop in the zooplankton, if its sole carbon source was autotrophic phytoplankton.
According to the results of this approach dissolved organic matter seems to be an important food resource for zooplankton, particularly in highly humic lakes. This conclusion was confirmed by the finding that zooplankton from these lakes was able to grow and reproduce in experiments started with filtered lake water and conducted in complete darkness.
The development of algae was followed over the course of one experiment in highly humic water. The same micro-flagellates reproduced equally well in both light and darkness, which indicates the importance of heterotrophic metabolism in their nutrition. Although there are no direct observations about the food of zooplankton in our experiments, it appears likely that heterotrophic flagellates play an important role as a food of zooplankton in humic waters.
The importance of dissolved organic matter in the nutrition of aquatic organisms would seem to be much greater than has generally been recognized. Consequently the prevailing concepts of the structure and functioning of planktonic ecosystem should be thoroughly re-evaluated.
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Salonen, K., Hammar, T. On the importance of dissolved organic matter in the nutrition of zooplankton in some lake waters. Oecologia 68, 246–253 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00384795
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00384795