Journal
ECOLOGY
Volume 87, Issue 2, Pages 433-443Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1890/05-0352
Keywords
altitude; biodiversity; fish; lake area; latitude; longitude; production; species richness; zooplankton
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
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.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available