Planktonic food web structure and potential carbon flow in the Lower River Rhine with a focus on the role of protozoans

Abstract

Studies during the last two decades have revealed the importance of planktonic micro-organisms in the aquatic matter flux. However, studies on the planktonic food web structure have mostly concentrated on lentic waters. In the present study the biomass partitioning of the major plankton groups (bacteria, algae, heterotrophic flagellates (HF), ciliates and metazoans) in a large river (Lower River Rhine) has been analysed for a complete annual cycle and calculations on potential carbon flow within the planktonic food web were conducted for the four seasons. The plankton biomass was dominated by phytoplankton followed by bacterioplankton. The zooplankton was dominated by HF, contributing more than 65% of the total zooplankton biomass in all seasons. A significant part of the HF biomass was contributed by large flagellates (> 20 µm). In accordance with the dominance of the HF and their high growth rates, this group contributed the largest part of the planktonic matter turnover within the zooplankton. The calculations suggest that the HF were able to consume between 11 and 65% of the seasonal mean bacterial production and that the HF consumed a larger amount of phytoplankton than both ciliates and metazoans. According to these calculations, only a small part of the total potential production of the phytoplankton as well as that of the total zooplankton was consumed by planktonic predators. Since the plankton abundance did not generally increase during the downstream passage, the present data suggest that a large part of the plankton production is lost by other means. The role of benthic predators has been discussed in this context. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.