High dietary quality of non-toxic cyanobacteria for a benthic grazer and its implications for the control of cyanobacterial biofilms

BMC Ecology
Sophie Groendahl, Patrick Fink

Abstract

Mass occurrences of cyanobacteria frequently cause detrimental effects to the functioning of aquatic ecosystems. Consequently, attempts haven been made to control cyanobacterial blooms through naturally co-occurring herbivores. Control of cyanobacteria through herbivores often appears to be constrained by their low dietary quality, rather than by the possession of toxins, as also non-toxic cyanobacteria are hardly consumed by many herbivores. It was thus hypothesized that the consumption of non-toxic cyanobacteria may be improved when complemented with other high quality prey. We conducted a laboratory experiment in which we fed the herbivorous freshwater gastropod Lymnaea stagnalis single non-toxic cyanobacterial and unialgal diets or a mixed diet to test if diet-mixing may enable these herbivores to control non-toxic cyanobacterial mass abundances. The treatments where L. stagnalis were fed non-toxic cyanobacteria and a mixed diet provided a significantly higher shell and soft-body growth rate than the average of all single algal, but not the non-toxic cyanobacterial diets. However, the increase in growth provided by the non-toxic cyanobacteria diets could not be related to typical determinants of dietary quality such as toxi...Continue Reading

References

Dec 16, 2000·Nature·J J ElserR W Sterner
May 2, 2003·Oecologia·Alexander Wacker, Eric Von Elert
Jun 21, 2003·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Eric von ElertJean R Le Coz
Jun 27, 2003·Oecologia·François DarchambeauDag O Hessen
Oct 22, 2008·Environmental Pollution·Claudia GérardAlexandre Carpentier
Dec 17, 2011·Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety·Vanessa BurmesterClaudia Wiegand
Mar 29, 2014·The Journal of Animal Ecology·Jana Moelzner, Patrick Fink
Jul 9, 2016·PloS One·Sophie Groendahl, Patrick Fink

❮ Previous
Next ❯

Citations

Sep 5, 2019·Scientific Reports·Ethan C CissellSophie J McCoy
Jun 28, 2018·Nature Reviews. Microbiology·Jef HuismanPetra M Visser
Apr 4, 2021·Molecules : a Journal of Synthetic Chemistry and Natural Product Chemistry·Marek ŠebelaPetr Hašler

❮ Previous
Next ❯

Software Mentioned

Xcalibur
R

Related Concepts

Related Feeds

Biofilm & Infectious Disease

Biofilm formation is a key virulence factor for a wide range of microorganisms that cause chronic infections.Here is the latest research on biofilm and infectious diseases.