Extrinsic and intrinsic controls of zooplankton diversity in lakes

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Issue Date
2006-02-01Author
Hessen, Dag O.
Faafeng, Bjørn A.
Smith, Val H.
Bakkestuen, Vegar
Walseng, Bjørn
Publisher
Ecological Society of America
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Rights
Copyright by the Ecological Society of America
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Pelagic crustacean zooplankton were collected from 336 Norwegian lakes covering a wide range of latitude, altitude, lake area, mean depth, production (as chlorophyll a), and fish community structure. Mean zooplankton species richness during the ice-free season was generally low at high latitudes and altitudes. Further, lower species richness was recorded in western lakes, possibly reflecting constraints on migration and dispersal. However, despite obvious spatial limitations, geographic boundaries were only weak predictors of mean zooplankton richness. Similarly, lake surface area did not contribute positively to mean richness such as seen in other ecosystem surveys. Rather, intrinsic factors such as primary production and fish community (planktivore) structure were identified by regression analysis as the major predictors of zooplankton diversity, while a positive correlation was observed between species richness and total zooplankton biomass. However, in spite of a large number of variables included in this study, the predictive power of multiple regression models was modest (<50% variance explained), pointing to a major role for within-lake properties, as yet unidentified intrinsic forces, stochasticity, or dispersal as constraints on zooplankton diversity in these lakes.
ISSN
0012-9658Collections
Citation
Dag O. Hessen, Bjørn A. Faafeng, Val H. Smith, Vegar Bakkestuen, and Bjørn Walseng 2006. EXTRINSIC AND INTRINSIC CONTROLS OF ZOOPLANKTON DIVERSITY IN LAKES. Ecology 87:433–443. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/05-0352
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