Ciliate community structure and interactions within the planktonic food web in two alpine lakes of contrasting transparency.

ABSTRACT: Climate warming is accelerating the retreat of glaciers and recently, many 'new' glacial turbid lakes have been created. In the course of time, the loss of the hydrological connectivity to a glacier causes, however, changes in their water turbidity and turns these ecosystems into clear ones.To understand potential differences in the food-web structure between glacier-fed turbid and clear alpine lakes, we sampled ciliates, phyto-, bacterio- and zooplankton in one clear and one glacial turbid alpine lake, and measured key physicochemical parameters. In particular, we focused on the ciliate community and the potential drivers for their abundance distribution.In both lakes, the zooplankton community was similar and dominated by the copepod Cyclops abyssorum tatricus and rotifers includi

SUBMITTER: Kammerlander B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5082529 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature