TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schälicke, Svenja
A1  - Teubner, Johannes
A1  - Martin-Creuzburg, Dominik
A1  - Wacker, Alexander
T1  - Fitness response variation within and among consumer species can be co-mediated by food quantity and biochemical quality
T2  - Scientific Reports
N2  - In natural heterogeneous environments, the fitness of animals is strongly influenced by the availability and composition of food. Food quantity and biochemical quality constraints may affect individual traits of consumers differently, mediating fitness response variation within and among species. Using a multifactorial experimental approach, we assessed population growth rate, fecundity, and survival of six strains of the two closely related freshwater rotifer species Brachionus calyciflorus sensu stricto and Brachionus fernandoi. Therefore, rotifers fed low and high concentrations of three algal species differing in their biochemical food quality. Additionally, we explored the potential of a single limiting biochemical nutrient to mediate variations in population growth response. Therefore, rotifers fed a sterol-free alga, which we supplemented with cholesterol-containing liposomes. Co-limitation by food quantity and biochemical food quality resulted in differences in population growth rates among strains, but not between species, although effects on fecundity and survival differed between species. The effect of cholesterol supplementation on population growth was strain-specific but not species-specific. We show that fitness response variations within and among species can be mediated by biochemical food quality. Dietary constraints thus may act as evolutionary drivers on physiological traits of consumers, which may have strong implications for various ecological interactions.
KW  - Polyunsaturated Fatty-Acids
KW  - Life-History Consequences
KW  - 2 Different Strains
KW  - Population-Growth
KW  - Resource Competition
KW  - Body-Size
KW  - Egg Size
KW  - Rotifier
KW  - Limitation
KW  - Carbon
Y1  - 2019
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/44224
SN  - 2045-2322
VL  - 9
PB  - Macmillan Publishers Limited
CY  - London
ER  -