Caroni, R.; Piscia, R.; Free, G.; Manca, M. Interpreting Seasonal Patterns and Long-Term Changes of Zooplankton in a Deep Subalpine Lake Using Stable Isotope Analysis. Water2023, 15, 3143.
Caroni, R.; Piscia, R.; Free, G.; Manca, M. Interpreting Seasonal Patterns and Long-Term Changes of Zooplankton in a Deep Subalpine Lake Using Stable Isotope Analysis. Water 2023, 15, 3143.
Caroni, R.; Piscia, R.; Free, G.; Manca, M. Interpreting Seasonal Patterns and Long-Term Changes of Zooplankton in a Deep Subalpine Lake Using Stable Isotope Analysis. Water2023, 15, 3143.
Caroni, R.; Piscia, R.; Free, G.; Manca, M. Interpreting Seasonal Patterns and Long-Term Changes of Zooplankton in a Deep Subalpine Lake Using Stable Isotope Analysis. Water 2023, 15, 3143.
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to elucidate patterns and mechanisms driving seasonal and inter-annual variations of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in the zooplankton crustacean commu-nity of Lake Maggiore (Italy), during the period 2009-2020. Different zooplankton taxa and groups revealed different ranges of d13C signatures, giving an insight into food sources and niche partition. In particular, cyclopoids had a restricted range with most negative d13C‰ values and increase in d13C fractionation with the establishment of water thermal vertical stratification, high-lighting the importance of vertical distribution as key factor for taxa coexistence in a vertically heterogenous environment. d13C of the zooplankton community and of Daphnia were positively related to water temperature (R2=0.58 p <0.0001 and R2=0.68 p <0.0001, respectively) and d13C Daphnia signature to chlorophyll-a (R2=0.32, p < 0.0001). Decomposition of time series data for zooplankton carbon and nitrogen signatures and environmental parameters identified increasing trends in water temperature, chlorophyll-a and water conductivity and decrease in nitrate, that matched changes in carbon isotopic signature trend in some zooplankton taxa (Bosmina, Daphnia and diaptomids). Overall, the observed patterns in zooplankton isotopic signatures were interpreted as integrations of climate warming effects in Lake Maggiore, affecting both food sources availability and environmental conditions.
Keywords
freshwater zooplankton; stable isotope analysis; lake; climate change; food web
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Environmental Science
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
