Impacts of nutrient reduction on temporal β-diversity of rotifers: A 19-year limnology case study on Lake Wuli, China

Abstract

There have been many studies on the effects of eutrophication on beta diversity (β-diversity) of species assemblages. However, few studies have focused on the effects of nutrient reduction on β-diversity and community structure, and long-time series analyses are particularly scarce. We conducted a 19-year case study on the impacts of management intervention on the temporal β-diversity of aquatic grazers in a lake at the Yangtze River Basin. In our study, we compared the changes in temporal β-diversity as well as its two components, nestedness and turnover, and the synchrony of the rotifer community after management intervention. Our results showed that while the abundance of some sensitive species increased, there was no trend in species richness. Moreover, both the seasonality and interannual stabilities of rotifer assemblages increased. The species synchrony decreased in both spring and summer after management intervention. We also found that management intervention significantly reduced nutrient concentrations but not water clarity and phytoplankton abundance. The total nitrogen (TN): total phosphorous (TP) ratio was reduced after management intervention, causing an increase in the abundance of cyanobacteria that may contribute to the increase of rotifer synchrony in autumn. Our results imply that stable environmental fluctuations after management intervention may increase temporal β-diversity and stability of herbivorous assemblages. However, imbalanced changes in TN and TP after management intervention may weaken the top-down control of zooplankton on phytoplankton and slow down water clarity improvement.