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Terrestrial subsidies to lake food webs: an experimental approach

  • Ecosystem ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Cross-ecosystem movements of material and energy are ubiquitous. Aquatic ecosystems typically receive material that also includes organic matter from the surrounding catchment. Terrestrial-derived (allochthonous) organic matter can enter aquatic ecosystems in dissolved or particulate form. Several studies have highlighted the importance of dissolved organic carbon to aquatic consumers, but less is known about allochthonous particulate organic carbon (POC). Similarly, most studies showing the effects of allochthonous organic carbon (OC) on aquatic consumers have investigated pelagic habitats; the effects of allochthonous OC on benthic communities are less well studied. Allochthonous inputs might further decrease primary production through light reduction, thereby potentially affecting autotrophic resource availability to consumers. Here, an enclosure experiment was carried out to test the importance of POC input and light availability on the resource use in a benthic food web of a clear-water lake. Corn starch (a C4 plant) was used as a POC source due to its insoluble nature and its distinct carbon stable isotope value (δ13C). The starch carbon was closely dispersed over the bottom of the enclosures to study the fate of a POC source exclusively available to sediment biota. The addition of starch carbon resulted in a clear shift in the isotopic signature of surface-dwelling herbivorous and predatory invertebrates. Although the starch carbon was added solely to the sediment surface, the carbon originating from the starch reached zooplankton. We suggest that allochthonous POC can subsidize benthic food webs directly and can be further transferred to pelagic systems, thereby highlighting the importance of benthic pathways for pelagic habitats.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Erik Geibrink and Mercè Berga for their sampling assistance during the experiment and Amber Rice and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript. This study is part of the project Lake Ecosystem Response to Environmental Change (LEREC) and was funded by the Swedish Research Council for Environmental, Agricultural and Spatial Planning (FORMAS).

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Author notes

  1. Katrin Premke

    Present address: Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany

  2. Kristin Steger

    Present address: Indo-German Centre for Sustainability, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Genetics/Limnology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Pia Bartels, Cristian Gudasz, Katrin Premke, Kristin Steger, Lars J. Tranvik & Peter Eklöv

  2. Centre for Conservation Ecology and Environmental Sciences, School of Applied Sciences, Bournemouth University, Poole, Dorset, UK

    Julien Cucherousset

  3. CNRS, UPS, ENFA, UMR5174, Laboratoire EDB (Évolution et Diversité Biologique), 118 Route de Narbonne, 31062, Toulouse, France

    Julien Cucherousset

  4. UPS, UMR5174, Laboratoire Évolution et Diversité Biologique (EDB), Université de Toulouse, 31062, Toulouse, France

    Julien Cucherousset

  5. Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    Mats Jansson, Lennart Persson & Anja Rubach

  6. Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Climate Impacts Research Centre, Umeå University, Abisko, Sweden

    Jan Karlsson

  7. Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, Müncheberg, Germany

    Katrin Premke

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  1. Pia Bartels
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Correspondence to Pia Bartels.

Additional information

Communicated by Craig Osenberg.

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Bartels, P., Cucherousset, J., Gudasz, C. et al. Terrestrial subsidies to lake food webs: an experimental approach. Oecologia 168, 807–818 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-011-2141-7

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