Universität zu Köln

Groendahl, Sophie and Fink, Patrick ORCID: 0000-0002-5927-8977 (2017). High dietary quality of non-toxic cyanobacteria for a benthic grazer and its implications for the control of cyanobacterial biofilms. BMC Ecol., 17. LONDON: BIOMED CENTRAL LTD. ISSN 1472-6785

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Background: Mass occurrences of cyanobacteria frequently cause detrimental effects to the functioning of aquatic ecosystems. Consequently, attempts haven been made to control cyanobacterial blooms through naturally cooccurring herbivores. Control of cyanobacteria through herbivores often appears to be constrained by their low dietary quality, rather than by the possession of toxins, as also non-toxic cyanobacteria are hardly consumed by many herbivores. It was thus hypothesized that the consumption of non-toxic cyanobacteria may be improved when complemented with other high quality prey. We conducted a laboratory experiment in which we fed the herbivorous freshwater gastropod Lymnaea stagnalis single non-toxic cyanobacterial and unialgal diets or a mixed diet to test if diet-mixing may enable these herbivores to control non-toxic cyanobacterial mass abundances. Results: The treatments where L. stagnalis were fed non-toxic cyanobacteria and a mixed diet provided a significantly higher shell and soft-body growth rate than the average of all single algal, but not the non-toxic cyanobacterial diets. However, the increase in growth provided by the non-toxic cyanobacteria diets could not be related to typical determinants of dietary quality such as toxicity, nutrient stoichiometry or essential fatty acid content. Conclusions: These results strongly contradict previous research which describes non-toxic cyanobacteria as a low quality food resource for freshwater herbivores in general. Our findings thus have strong implications to gastropod-cyanobacteria relationships and suggest that freshwater gastropods may be able to control mass occurrences of benthic non-toxic cyanobacteria, frequently observed in eutrophied water bodies worldwide.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Groendahl, Sophie UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Fink, Patrick UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-5927-8977 UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-231014
DOI:	10.1186/s12898-017-0130-3
Journal or Publication Title:	BMC Ecol.
Volume:	17
Date:	2017
Publisher:	BIOMED CENTRAL LTD
Place of Publication:	LONDON
ISSN:	1472-6785
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language MUSSEL DREISSENA-POLYMORPHA; POPULATION-GROWTH RATES; UNSATURATED FATTY-ACIDS; FOOD QUALITY; STOICHIOMETRIC CONSTRAINTS; PHOSPHORUS LIMITATION; TOXIC CYANOBACTERIA; PROTEASE INHIBITORS; DAPHNIA-GALEATA; LIFE-HISTORY Multiple languages Ecology Multiple languages
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/23101