@article{WeithoffNeumannSeiferthetal.2019,
  author    = {Weithoff, Guntram and Neumann, Catherin and Seiferth, Jacqueline and Weisse, Thomas},
  title     = {Living on the edge: reproduction, dispersal potential, maternal effects and local adaptation in aquatic, extremophilic invertebrates},
  series = {Aquatic sciences : research across boundaries},
  volume    = {81},
  journal   = {Aquatic sciences : research across boundaries},
  number    = {3},
  publisher = {Springer},
  address   = {Basel},
  issn      = {1015-1621},
  doi       = {10.1007/s00027-019-0638-z},
  pages     = {9},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Isolated extreme habitats are ideally suited to investigate pivotal ecological processes such as niche use, local adaptation and dispersal. Extremophilic animals living in isolated habitats face the problem that dispersal is limited through the absence of suitable dispersal corridors, which in turn facilitates local adaptation. We used five rotifer isolates from extremely acidic mining lakes with a pH of below 3 as model organisms to test whether these isolates are acidotolerant or acidophilic, whether they survive and reproduce at their niche edges (here pH 2 and circum-neutral pH) and whether local adaptation has evolved. To evaluate potential dispersal limitation, we tested whether animals and their parthenogenetic eggs survive and remain reproductive or viable at unfavourable pH-conditions. All five isolates were acidophilic with a pH-optimum in the range of 4-6, which is well above the pH (< 3) of their lakes of origin. At unfavourable high pH, in four out of the five isolates parthenogenetic females produced a high number of non-viable eggs. Females and eggs produced at favourable pH (4) remained vital at an otherwise unfavourable pH of 7, indicating that for dispersal no acidic dispersal corridors are necessary. Common garden experiments revealed no clear evidence for local adaptation in any of the five isolates. Despite their acidophilic nature, all five isolates can potentially disperse via circum-neutral water bodies as long as their residence time is short, suggesting a broader dispersal niche than their realized niche. Local adaptation might have been hampered by the low population sizes of the rotifers in their isolated habitat and the short time span the mining lakes have existed.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{QuintanaArimBadosaetal.2015,
  author    = {Quintana, Xavier D. and Arim, Matias and Badosa, Anna and Maria Blanco, Jose and Boix, Dani and Brucet, Sandra and Compte, Jordi and Egozcue, Juan J. and de Eyto, Elvira and Gaedke, Ursula and Gascon, Stephanie and Gil de Sola, Luis and Irvine, Kenneth and Jeppesen, Erik and Lauridsen, Torben L. and Lopez-Flores, Rocio and Mehner, Thomas and Romo, Susana and Sondergaard, Martin},
  title     = {Predation and competition effects on the size diversity of aquatic communities},
  series = {Aquatic sciences : research across boundaries},
  volume    = {77},
  journal   = {Aquatic sciences : research across boundaries},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Springer},
  address   = {Basel},
  issn      = {1015-1621},
  doi       = {10.1007/s00027-014-0368-1},
  pages     = {45 -- 57},
  year      = {2015},
  abstract  = {Body size has been widely recognised as a key factor determining community structure in ecosystems. We analysed size diversity patterns of phytoplankton, zooplankton and fish assemblages in 13 data sets from freshwater and marine sites with the aim to assess whether there is a general trend in the effect of predation and resource competition on body size distribution across a wide range of aquatic ecosystems. We used size diversity as a measure of the shape of size distribution. Size diversity was computed based on the Shannon-Wiener diversity expression, adapted to a continuous variable, i.e. as body size. Our results show that greater predation pressure was associated with reduced size diversity of prey at all trophic levels. In contrast, competition effects depended on the trophic level considered. At upper trophic levels (zooplankton and fish), size distributions were more diverse when potential resource availability was low, suggesting that competitive interactions for resources promote diversification of aquatic communities by size. This pattern was not found for phytoplankton size distributions where size diversity mostly increased with low zooplankton grazing and increasing nutrient availability. Relationships we found were weak, indicating that predation and competition are not the only determinants of size distribution. Our results suggest that predation pressure leads to accumulation of organisms in the less predated sizes, while resource competition tends to favour a wider size distribution.},
  language  = {en}
}