TY  - JOUR
A1  - Lischke, Betty
A1  - Weithoff, Guntram
A1  - Wickham, Stephen A.
A1  - Attermeyer, Katrin
A1  - Großart, Hans-Peter
A1  - Scharnweber, Inga Kristin
A1  - Hilt, Sabine
A1  - Gaedke, Ursula
T1  - Large biomass of small feeders: ciliates may dominate herbivory in eutrophic lakes
JF  - Journal of plankton research
N2  - The importance of ciliates as herbivores and in biogeochemical cycles is increasingly recognized. An opportunity to observe the potential consequences of zooplankton dominated by ciliates arose when winter fish kills resulted in strong suppression of crustaceans by young planktivorous fish in two shallow lakes. On an annual average, ciliates made up 38-76% of the total zooplankton biomass in both lakes during two subsequent years. Consequently, ciliate biomass and their estimated grazing potential were extremely high compared with other lakes of various trophic states and depths. Grazing estimates based on abundance and size suggest that ciliates should have cleared the water column of small (<5 mu m) and intermediate (5-50 mu m) sized phytoplankton more than once a day. Especially, small feeders within the ciliates were important, likely exerting a strong top-down control on small phytoplankton. Particle-attached bacteria were presumably strongly suppressed by intermediate-sized ciliate feeders. In contrast to other lakes, large phytoplankton was proportionately very abundant. The phytoplankton community had a high evenness, which may be attributed to the feeding by numerous fast growing and selective ciliate species. Our study highlights ciliates as an important trophic link and adds to the growing awareness of the role of winter processes for plankton dynamics.
KW  - phytoplankton
KW  - crustaceans
KW  - rotifers
KW  - filtration rate
KW  - winter fish kill
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1093/plankt/fbv102
SN  - 0142-7873
SN  - 1464-3774
VL  - 38
SP  - 2
EP  - 15
PB  - Oxford Univ. Press
CY  - Oxford
ER  -