Effects of production, sedimentation and taphonomic processes on the composition and size structure of sedimenting cladoceran remains in a large deep subalpine lake: paleo-ecological implications

Abstract

Changes in the composition and size structure of cladoceran remains collected in sediment traps (ST) were compared at a monthly time-resolution to the changes in the cladoceran source communities in order to assess the effects of production, sedimentation and taphonomic processes on the composition, completeness of time series and size structure of cladoceran remains in a large deep monomictic subalpine lake. Cladoceran remains collected in the ST globally reflected seasonal changes in the composition of the source community for the dominant taxa (Daphnia sp., Eubosmina spp. and. D. brachyurum) but failed in capturing accurately the seasonal changes in the abundance of the least abundant species, B. longirostris. Using allometric relationships, the average body size of the organisms that produced the remains retrieved in the ST could be reconstructed. Although the cladoceran average body size estimated from trap remains was always smaller than that of the source communities, temporal changes in the average body size of the dominant taxa in the source community were captured by trap samples. Our results showed that, in this deep subalpine lake, cladoceran remains production, sedimentation and taphonomic processes within the water column did not alter the compositional fidelity of remains at seasonal and annual time scales for the dominant taxa. Results did not show any significant over-representation of Bosmina and subsequent under-representation of Daphnia in contrast to previous studies on small and flat lakes. Our results suggest that the frequently observed under-estimation of Daphnia in fossil assemblages could be a consequence of the mesh size used when processing sediment core samples rather than of varying magnitude of degradation processes between small or flat lakes and deep lakes. Finally, our results support the use of the size of cladoceran remains within paleo-ecological studies to assess past changes in the size structure of the source communities.