Under-ice availability of phytoplankton lipids is key to freshwater zooplankton winter survival.

ABSTRACT: Shortening winter ice-cover duration in lakes highlights an urgent need for research focused on under-ice ecosystem dynamics and their contributions to whole-ecosystem processes. Low temperature, reduced light and consequent changes in autotrophic and heterotrophic resources alter the diet for long-lived consumers, with consequences on their metabolism in winter. We show in a survival experiment that the copepod Leptodiaptomus minutus in a boreal lake does not survive five months under the ice without food. We then report seasonal changes in phytoplankton, terrestrial and bacterial fatty acid (FA) biomarkers in seston and in four zooplankton species for an entire year. Phytoplankton FA were highly available in seston (2.6 µg L^-1) throughout the first month under the ice. Copepod

SUBMITTER: Grosbois G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5599675 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature