Universität zu Köln

Fink, Patrick ORCID: 0000-0002-5927-8977, Pflitsch, Claudia and Marin, Kay (2011). Dietary Essential Amino Acids Affect the Reproduction of the Keystone Herbivore Daphnia pulex. PLoS One, 6 (12). SAN FRANCISCO: PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE. ISSN 1932-6203

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Abstract

Recent studies have indicated that nitrogen availability can be an important determinant of primary production in freshwater lakes and that herbivore growth can be limited by low dietary nitrogen availability. Furthermore, a lack of specific essential nitrogenous biochemicals (such as essential amino acids) might be another important constraint on the fitness of consumers. This might be of particular importance for cladoceran zooplankton, which can switch between two alternative reproductive strategies - the production of subitaneously developing and resting eggs. Here, we hypothesize that both the somatic growth and the type of reproduction of the aquatic keystone herbivore Daphnia is limited by the availability of specific essential amino acids in the diet. In laboratory experiments, we investigated this hypothesis by feeding a high quality phytoplankton organism (Cryptomonas) and a green alga of moderate nutritional quality (Chlamydomonas) to a clone of Daphnia pulex with and without the addition of essential amino acids. The somatic growth of D. pulex differed between the algae of different nutritional quality, but not dependent on the addition of dissolved amino acids. However, in reproduction experiments, where moderate crowding conditions at saturating food quantities were applied, addition of the essential amino acids arginine and histidine (but not lysine and threonine) increased the total number and the developmental stage of subitaneous eggs. While D. pulex did not produce resting eggs on Cryptomonas, relatively high numbers of resting eggs were released on Chlamydomonas. When arginine and histidine were added to the green algal diet, the production of resting eggs was effectively suppressed. This demonstrates the high, but previously overlooked importance of single essential amino acids for the reproductive strategy of the aquatic keystone herbivore Daphnia.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Fink, Patrick UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-5927-8977 UNSPECIFIED Pflitsch, Claudia UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Marin, Kay UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-483639
DOI:	10.1371/journal.pone.0028498
Journal or Publication Title:	PLoS One
Volume:	6
Number:	12
Date:	2011
Publisher:	PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
Place of Publication:	SAN FRANCISCO
ISSN:	1932-6203
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language POLYUNSATURATED FATTY-ACIDS; PREDATOR-INDUCED DIAPAUSE; RESTING-EGG-PRODUCTION; FRESH-WATER; PHOSPHORUS LIMITATION; NUTRIENT LIMITATION; PENAEUS-MONODON; FOOD QUALITY; MAGNA; MARINE Multiple languages Multidisciplinary Sciences Multiple languages
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/48363