Pelagic copepods often couple the classical and microbial food webs by feeding on microzooplankton (e.g. ciliates) in oligotrophic aquatic systems, and this consumption can trigger trophic cascades within the microbial food web. Consumption of mixotrophic microzooplankton, which are both autotrophic and heterotrophic within the same individual, is of particular interest because of its influence on carbon transfer efficiency within aquatic food webs. In Lake Baikal, Siberia, it is unknown how carbon from a well‐developed microbial food web present during summer stratification moves into higher trophic levels within the classical food web. We conducted in situ experiments in August 2015 to test the hypotheses that: (a) the lake's dominant endemic copepod ( Our results supported these hypotheses. Most ciliates consumed were a mixotrophic oligotrich and such taxa are often abundant in summer in other oligotrophic lakes. Consumption of these mixotrophs is likely to boost substantially the transfer efficiency of biomass to higher trophic levels with potential implications for fish production, but this has seldom been investigated in oligotrophic lakes. Feeding of
- Award ID(s):
- 1654276
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10335393
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Plankton Research
- Volume:
- 43
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 0142-7873
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 957 to 973
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1093/plankt/fbab074
