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Multiple zooplankton species alter the stoichiometric interactions between producer and consumer levels

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Abstract

Planktonic primary consumers have been shown to strongly influence phytoplankton communities via top-down effects such as grazing and nutrient recycling. However, it remains unclear how changes in consumer richness may alter the stoichiometric constrains between producer and consumer assemblages. Here we test whether the stoichiometry of producer–consumer interactions is affected by the species richness of the consumer community (multispecies consumer assemblage vs single consumer species). Therefore, we fed a phytoplankton assemblage consisting of two flagellates and two diatom species reared under a 2 × 2 factorial combination of light and nitrogen supply to three planktonic consumer species in mono- and polycultures. As expected, phytoplankton biomass and C:nutrient ratios significantly increased with light intensity while nitrogen limitation resulted in reduced phytoplankton biomass and increasing phytoplankton C:N but lower N:P. Differences in phytoplankton stoichiometry were partly transferred to the consumer level, i.e., consumer C:N significantly increased with phytoplankton C:N. Consumer diversity significantly increased consumer biomass, resource use efficiency and nutrient uptake. In turn, consumer N:P ratios significantly decreased in consumer assemblages under high resource supply due to unequal changes in nutrient uptake. Consumer diversity further altered phytoplankton biomass, stoichiometry and species composition via increased consumption. Whether the effects of consumer diversity on phytoplankton and consumer performance were positive or negative strongly depended on the resource supply. In conclusion, the stoichiometric constraints of trophic interactions in multispecies assemblages cannot be predicted from monoculture traits alone, but consumer diversity effects are constrained by the resources supplied.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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  • 01 February 2020

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Acknowledgements

We thank Heike Rickels for technical support, as well as Mareen Möller and Samuel Nietzer for their support during the experiment. We additionally thank Maren Striebel, Stefanie Moorthi and Thomas Anderson for their competent and fruitful feedback on the manuscript. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the manuscript.

Funding

This study was funded by the German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG Hi 848 7-1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oldenburg, Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), Schleusenstr. 1, 26382, Wilhelmshaven, Germany

    Christoph Plum & Helmut Hillebrand

  2. Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) at the University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

    Helmut Hillebrand

  3. Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz-Centre for Polar and Marine Research [AWI], Bremerhaven, Germany

    Helmut Hillebrand

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  1. Christoph Plum
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Appendix

Appendix

See Table 4, and Figs. 5, 6 and 7.

Table 4 Phytoplankton response to light, nitrogen and the interaction of both before grazing tested with a two-factorial ANOVA
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Fig. 5
figure 5

Algal biomass (algal C µmol L−1), RUE and NUE in response to the factorial combination of light and nitrogen availability (mean ± SE) before grazing (left panel) and after grazing (right panel). HL, high light; LL, low light; N+, nitrogen enriched; N−, nitrogen limited

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Fig. 6
figure 6

Algal elemental ratios (molar C:N, C:P and N:P) in response to the factorial combination of light and nitrogen availability (mean ± SE) before grazing (left panel) and after grazing (right panel). For abbreviations, see “Fig. 5 in Appendix”

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Fig. 7
figure 7

Skeletonema costatum (Ske) was proportionally the most abundant species in the algal assemblages (except for HL +N) with up to 70% of the total biovolume. Both, Rhodomonas salina (Rho) and Tetraselmis sp. (Tet) remained below 20% of total biovolume. The proportions were more equally distributed at HL and +N which was mainly based on the dominance of Tetraselmis sp. (up to 50% of total biovolume) and higher proportions of the subdominant species Rhodomonas salina (up to 25% of total biovolume). The biovolume of Chaetoceros danicus (Chae) contributed less than 1% to the total algal biovolume under all resource conditions

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Plum, C., Hillebrand, H. Multiple zooplankton species alter the stoichiometric interactions between producer and consumer levels. Mar Biol 166, 163 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-019-3609-y

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