RUI: Food Quality Gradients and Exploitation Tradeoffs for Zooplankton in Freshwater Lakes

DEB 9983383DeMott摘要 在陆生和水生系统中，对食物质量差如何影响食草动物的知识有限，这是我们对食物链功能理解的一个主要缺陷。 浮游动物是湖泊和海洋开放沃茨中的主要食草动物，是连接浮游植物和鱼类的重要纽带。 虽然食物质量对浮游动物的影响已经在实验室实验中记录在案，但来自自然界的证据非常有限。DeMott建议我们建议使用DeMott开发的新技术来研究浮游动物食物质量的自然梯度。 将解决两个问题：1）什么机制解释分层（深）和分层（浅）湖泊之间的食物质量的差异，以及沿着深度和水平梯度内湖泊？2）浮游动物物种在利用食物资源的能力上的差异是基于什么样的生理特征沿着这些梯度。生长和喂养实验将在密歇根州的凯洛格生物站进行，食物资源来自湖泊。这些实验的目的是测试替代假设的食物质量的同时，并获得的结果，可以概括内和跨湖泊类型。该项目的第二部分将在德莫特位于印第安纳州的实验室进行，将使用实验室食物测试浮游动物沿着食物质量梯度的物种。这个项目将提高我们对浮游生物食物链功能和食草动物与植物相互作用的理解。

DEB 9983383DeMott Abstract In both terrestrial and aquatic systems, limited knowledge of how poor food quality impacts herbivores is a major deficiency in our understanding of food chain function. Zooplankton are the dominant herbivores in the open waters of lakes and ocean, forming a key link between phytoplankton and fish. Although effects of food quality on zooplankton have been documented in laboratory experiments, evidence from nature is very limited. DeMott proposes we propose to use new techniques developed by DeMott to study natural gradients in food quality for zooplankton. Two questions will be addressed: 1) What mechanisms explain differences in food quality between stratified (deep) and unstratified (shallow) lakes and along depth and horizontal gradients within lakes? and 2) What physiological traits underlie differences in the abilities of zooplankton species to exploit food resources along these gradients. Growth and feeding experiments will be conducted at the Kellogg Biological Station, Michigan with food resources from lakes. These experiments are designed to test alternative hypotheses of food quality simultaneously, and to obtain results that can be generalized within and across lake types. The second part of the project, to be conducted at DeMott's laboratory in Indiana, will test zooplankton species along gradients of food quality using laboratory foods. This project will enhance our understanding of food chain function in the plankton and in herbivore-plant interactions in general.