title: The interaction between cyanobacteria and zooplankton in a more eutrophic world.
abstract: As blooms of cyanobacteria expand and intensify in freshwater systems globally, there is increasing interest in their ecological effects. In addition to being public health hazards, cyanobacteria have long been considered a poor quality food for key zooplankton grazers that link phytoplankton to higher trophic levels. While past laboratory studies have found negative effects of nutritional constraints and defensive traits (i.e., toxicity and colonial or filamentous morphology) on the fitness of large generalist grazers (i.e., Daphnia), cyanobacterial blooms often co-exist with high biomass of small-bodied zooplankton in nature. Indeed, recent studies highlight the remarkable diversity and flexibility in zooplankton responses to cyanobacterial prey. Reviewed here are results from a wide range of laboratory and field experiments examining the interaction of cyanobacteria and a diverse zooplankton taxa including cladocerans, copepods, and heterotrophic protists from temperate to tropical freshwater systems. This synthesis shows that longer exposure to cyanobacteria can shift zooplankton communities toward better-adapted species, select for more tolerant genotypes within a species, and induce traits within the lifetime of individual zooplankton. In turn, the function of bloom-dominated plankton ecosystems, the coupling between primary producers and grazers, the stability of blooms, and the potential to use top down biomanipulation for controlling cyanobacteria depend largely on the species, abundance, and traits of interacting cyanobacteria and zooplankton. Understanding the drivers and consequences of zooplankton traits, such as physiological detoxification and selective vs. generalist grazing behavior, are therefore of major importance for future studies. Ultimately, co-evolutionary dynamics between cyanobacteria and their grazers may emerge as a critical regulator of blooms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology, Center for Biosciences, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, RN, Brazil. Electronic address: aligerger@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Kemal Ali
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Ger
authors.affiliation: Center for Environmental and Climate Research, Lund University, Lund, Sweden; Department of Biology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Pablo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Urrutia-Cordero
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Paul C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Frost
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Lars-Anders
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Hansson
authors.affiliation: Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, 163A Natural Resources Building, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.
authors.forename: Orlando
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Sarnelle
authors.affiliation: School of Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Aquatic Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA.
authors.forename: Alan E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Sciences, Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands; Department of Aquatic Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology - Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Miquel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lürling
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000458:Cyanobacteria / Q000502:physiology*; D017753:Ecosystem; D005068:Eutrophication; D005618:Fresh Water; D015048:Zooplankton / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Co-evolution; Eutrophication; Grazing; Local-adaptation; Plankton