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Comparison in phytoplankton diversity-productivity-community stability between river-type reservoir and lake-type reservoir

  • Ecology
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Abstract

Relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function is one of the core issues in ecological research. Phytoplankton, as the main producer of aquatic ecosystem, its diversity, productivity, and community stability are of great significance to reveal ecosystem function. There are significant differences in hydrodynamics, water retention time, and phytoplankton community structure between river-type reservoir and newly built lake-type reservoir. The comparative analysis of phytoplankton community stability between the two types of reservoir has not been reported. Jiuquwan Reservoir (river-type) and Taihu Reservoir (laketype), the two reservoirs in the Dongjiang River source area of Zhujiang (Pearl) River Basin, were selected for comparison in terms of multi-year operation vs. new impoundment, river-type vs. lake-type, and shallow water vs. sub-deep water reservoirs. Samples were collected in dry season (December 2019), normal season (March 2020), and wet season (August 2020), on which the phytoplankton diversity and productivity of the two reservoirs, and the relationship and difference of community stability were examined. Results show that (1) the number of phytoplankton species in Jiuquwan Reservoir decreased comparing that before algal bloom and the restoration treatment, while that in Taihu Reservoir increased compared with that before the impoundment of the reservoir. There was no significant difference in functional groups and species number between the two reservoirs ( P >0.05); (2) the biological stability, diversity, productivity, and resource utilization efficiency of newly built lake-type reservoir were higher than those of multi-year river-type reservoir. In addition, the utilization efficiency of phytoplankton resources was the highest in wet season in both reservoirs. The increases in biodiversity, richness, and evenness promoted the stability of the community, while increases in productivity and resource utilization efficiency weakened the stability of the community; (3) community stability was affected by both biotic and abiotic factors, and hydrodynamic index was the main factor. This study is helpful to understand the relationship and differences in phytoplankton diversity, productivity and community stability in different types of reservoirs, and provides a guidance for maintaining the stability of reservoir water ecosystem and protecting the biodiversity. The relationships between phytoplankton diversity, productivity, and community stability will be investigated in depth, for which a long-term observation will be conducted on the impact of environmental factors and diversity on the local biostability in different types of reservoirs.

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Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available as the project has not been concluded but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgment

We are grateful to Prof. Ren HU of Jinan Normal University for his tutoring on topic selection, design of field observation, and thesis formulation; to Prof. Meiying XU of Guangdong Institute of Microbiology for his inspiration and help in the research direction; to Profs. Wenlong CHEN, Fang YANG, and the Director Weijie HUANG from the Pearl River Water Resources Research Institute for a financial support and technical guidance in the field works and the manuscript preparation; to the two peer reviewers for constructive suggestions on improving the manuscript, to Dr. Roger YU for guidance in technical writing and language polishing, to Drs. Yang CHEN and Jiao LIU, the editors of this journal for review and editing of the manuscript. Thanks are extended to the research team members Mugui LI, Zubiao ZHANG, Ning LI, Rui HE, Xunan YANG, and others for the cooperation in this project and their strong support in reservoir sampling and data collection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, China

    Qiong Wu

  2. Pearl River Water Resources Research Institute, Guangzhou, 510611, China

    Qiong Wu, Huan Luo, Qian Chen, Yanjun Dong & Shenghua Li

  3. Key Laboratory of the Pearl River Estuary Regulation and Protection of Ministry of Water Resources, Guangzhou, 510611, China

    Qiong Wu

  4. Guangdong Provincial Engineering Technology Research Center for Life and Health of River & Lake, Guangzhou, 510611, Slovenia

    Qiong Wu & Huan Luo

  5. Key Laboratory for Information System of Mountainous Area and Protection of Ecological Environment of Guizhou Province, Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang, 550001, China

    Qiuhua Li

  6. Bureau of Ecological Environment of Xunwu County of Jiangxi Province, Xunwu, 342200, China

    Huaxiang Chen

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Correspondence to Qiong Wu or Qiuhua Li.

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Supported by the Key Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (No. 2019B110205004) and the Science and Technology Foundation of Guizhou Province (Nos. [2020]4Y009, [2020]6009)

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Wu, Q., Li, Q., Luo, H. et al. Comparison in phytoplankton diversity-productivity-community stability between river-type reservoir and lake-type reservoir. J. Ocean. Limnol. 40, 1485–1507 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-021-1175-x

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