Benthic grazing in a eutrophic river: cascading effects of zoobenthivorous fish mask direct effects of herbivorous fish

PeerJ
Madlen GerkeCarola Winkelmann

Abstract

Benthic grazing strongly controls periphyton biomass. The question therefore arises whether benthic grazing could be used as a tool to reduce excessive growth of periphyton in nutrient-enriched rivers. Although benthic invertebrate grazers reduce the growth of periphyton, this is highly context dependent. Here we assessed whether the only obligate herbivorous fish in European rivers, the common nase (Chondrostoma nasusL.), is able to reduce periphyton biomass in a eutrophic river. We conducted three consecutivein situexperiments at low, intermediate and high densities of nase in the river using standard tiles on the river bottom naturally covered with periphyton that were accessible to fish and tiles that excluded fish foraging with electric exclosures. The biomass of benthic invertebrate grazers was very low relative to nase. We hypothesised that nase would reduce periphyton biomass on accessible tiles and therefore expected higher periphyton biomass on the exclosure tiles, at least at intermediate and high densities of nase in the river. Contrary to our expectation, the impact of fish grazing was low even at high fish density, as judged by the significantly lower chlorophyllaconcentration on exclosure tiles even though the as...Continue Reading

References

Apr 29, 2006·The Science of the Total Environment·John HiltonJ Iwan Jones
Nov 9, 1990·Science·M E Power
Jan 1, 2010·Molecular Ecology Resources·Emmanuel CorseAndré Gilles
Nov 18, 2015·Oecologia·Michael A GilCraig W Osenberg

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Citations

Oct 10, 2020·The Science of the Total Environment·Madlen GerkeCarola Winkelmann

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
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Software Mentioned

SIMPER
R
ANOSIM
R Development Core

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