Stream permanence influences microalgal food availability to grazing tadpoles in arid-zone springs.

Abstract

Primary production in many ephemeral waters peaks soon after inundation, but the extent to which the algal biomass generated by this process is immediately available to aquatic herbivores as a food source has not been extensively studied. To examine this, we exposed natural epilithon from two permanent and two recently rewetted temporary reaches of an intermittent stream to grazing by small, presumably newly hatched, Limnodynastes tasmaniensis tadpoles and compared the algal content of tadpole feces to that of the assemblages on which they grazed. Rocks from the temporary sites, one colonized by tadpoles and one not, supported relatively flocculent, diatom-rich (79.7-85.7%) epilithon of similar biomass and taxonomic content. Epilithon from the permanent sites (one with and one without tadpoles) were more cohesive, contained fewer diatoms (57.0-60.7%), and differed in species composition from that of the temporary sites, and from one another. Feces and epilithon were more taxonomically similar when epilithon originated from temporary reaches than from permanent sites. This implies that grazing tadpoles accessed a greater percentage of the algal assemblages from recently rewetted sites. Algal species differed in susceptibility to ingestion by small tadpoles, but these differences were not consistent among habitats; susceptibility to ingestion was not predictable based solely on species growth habit, but was likely also affected by physiognomic differences in mat structure among habitats. A large percentage of algal cells ingested by tadpoles survived gut passage. `Live' cells (those with full chloroplasts) comprised 43.8-66.6% of all diatoms from epilithic samples and 27.4-42.7% of those in feces of small tadpoles. In contrast, only 12.8-14.9% of the diatoms in feces produced by large L. tasmaniensis tadpoles collected from the two tadpole-colonized sites contained full chloroplasts, suggesting higher digestion efficiency in large tadpoles than in small ones. Distinct, gut-passage-induced transitions from `live' diatoms to empty frustules or single diatom valves (`dead' cells) were evident when grazed material originated from temporary reaches. In contrast, `live' diatoms in epilithon from permanent sites were more likely to emerge in tadpole feces with reduced or fragmented chloroplasts. Thus, algae from temporary reaches appeared to be more efficiently digested than those from permanent reaches. While digestibility of individual taxa varied among sites, some algae (e.g., Synedra ulna) were clearly more digestible than others. Our results suggest that temporary stream reaches in arid-zone catchments are important sources of readily digestible autotrophic biomass for anuran species in these regions.