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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.
On their way from inland to the ocean, flowing water bodies, their constituents and their biotic communities are ex-posed to complex transport and transformation processes. However, detailed process knowledge as revealed by La-grangian measurements adjusted to travel time is rare in large rivers, in particular at hydrological extremes. To fill this gap, we investigated autotrophic processes, heterotrophic carbon utilization, and micropollutant concentrations applying a Lagrangian sampling design in a 600 km section of the River Elbe (Germany) at historically low discharge. Under base flow conditions, we expect the maximum intensity of instream processes and of point source impacts. Phy-toplankton biomass and photosynthesis increased from upstream to downstream sites but maximum chlorophyll con-centration was lower than at mean discharge. Concentrations of dissolved macronutrients decreased to almost complete phosphate depletion and low nitrate values. The longitudinal increase of bacterial abundance and production was less pronounced than in wetter years and bacterial community composition changed downstream. Molecular analyses revealed a longitudinal increase of many DOM components due to microbial production, whereas saturated lipid-like DOM, unsaturated aromatics and polyphenols, and some CHOS surfactants declined. In decomposition exper-iments, DOM components with high O/C ratios and high masses decreased whereas those with low O/C ratios, low masses, and high nitrogen content increased at all sites. Radiocarbon age analyses showed that DOC was relatively old (890-1870 years B.P.), whereas the mineralized fraction was much younger suggesting predominant oxidation of algal lysis products and exudates particularly at downstream sites. Micropollutants determining toxicity for algae (terbuthylazine, terbutryn, isoproturon and lenacil), hexachlorocyclohexanes and DDTs showed higher concentrations from the middle towards the downstream part but calculated toxicity was not negatively correlated to phytoplankton. Overall, autotrophic and heterotrophic process rates and micropollutant concentrations increased from up-to down-stream reaches, but their magnitudes were not distinctly different to conditions at medium discharges.