Efeitos de peixes zooplanctívoros e onívoros sobre a resposta de comunidades planctônicas à fertilização por nutrientes

Abstract

The food chain theory predict that presence of omnivory prevent the trophic cascade and could be a strong stabilizing factor over resource and consumer community dynamics, and that the nutrient enrichment destabilize populations dynamics. Most of the freshwater tropical reservoirs are eutrophic, and strategies that seek improve the water quality through the control of phytoplankton biomass and nutrient input, become essential for the improvement and preservation of water quality. The aim of this study was test the zooplanktivory (when larvae) and omnivory (when young and adult) effects of Nile Tilapia over the structure and dynamics of plankton communities, in addition or absence of nutrients enrichment. For this, one field experiment was performed with a factorial design 2x3 resulting in six treatments: control, without fish and nutrient (C); with omnivorous fish (O); with zooplanktivorous fish (Z); without fish and with enrichment of nutrients (NP); with omnivorous fish and nutrients (ONP); and, with zooplanktivorous fish and nutrients (ZNP). The two planktivory types reduced the zooplankton biomass and increased the phytoplankton biomass, but the omnivory of filter-feeding fish attenuated the trophic cascade magnitude. The fertilization by nutrients increases the nutrient concentrations in water and the phytoplankton biomass, but the effect on zooplankton is dependent of the trophic structure. In a general way, the effects of the fish and nutrient addition were addictive, but significant interactions among those factors were observed in the answer of some zooplankton groups. The effects of omnivorous fish over the temporal variability of phytoplankton and zooplankton biomass were very variable, the increase or reduce in variability of the plankton depending of the level of nutrients and of the analyzed variable. With base in this study, we conclude that the planktivory type exercised by the fish and the concentrations of nutrients in the water affects the force of pelagic trophic cascades and probably the success of biomanipulation programs for the handling of water quality in lakes and tropical reservoirs