Original paper
Differences in the plankton communities of newly-created small fishponds under different fishery management regimes
Hadašová, Lenka; Jurek, Lukáš; Řezníčková, Pavla; Šorf, Michal; Petrek, Radim; Kopp, Radovan
Fundamental and Applied Limnology Volume 197 Nr. 1 (2023), p. 25 - 36
47 references
published: Sep 14, 2023
published online: May 11, 2023
manuscript accepted: Mar 23, 2023
manuscript revision received: Dec 29, 2022
manuscript revision requested: Oct 8, 2022
manuscript received: Aug 12, 2022
ArtNo. ESP141019701002, Price: 29.00 €
Abstract
Fishponds are man-made shallow waterbodies with ecosystems that mainly rely on fishery management. It is generally assumed that a fishpond’s plankton assemblage structure results from a combination of bottom-up and top-down effects; however, knowledge about the development of plankton in newly-created fishponds with differing fish stock biomass is scarce. To address this, we investigated plankton community development over two years in five newly-created fishponds in the Czech Republic, Central Europe. The main cultured fish species in the fishponds were tench (Tinca tinca) and pikeperch (Sander lucioperca). In addition, the invasive and zooplanktivorous topmouth gudgeon (Pseudorasbora parva) was regularly present and probably reduced zooplankton abundance. The results indicated that the plankton communities were mainly composed of smaller-sized zooplankton taxa, especially rotifers (Asplanchna Brachionus Keratella Filinia) and cladocerans (mainly Bosmina longirostris). The phytoplankton was dominated by green algae, with the exception of one fishpond with high phosphorus and nitrogen concentrations, which was dominated by the cyanobacterium Planktothrix aghardii. The main factors determining both phytoplankton and zooplankton development were total phosphorus, total nitrogen, water transparency and chlorophyll-a concentration, which together explained a significant part of the variability (phytoplankton 47 %, zooplankton 70 %). The effect of fishery management was not significant, though the presence of topmouth gudgeon was found to be an important factor, being negatively correlated with the stocking of farmed fish. Overall, the availability, concentration and relative ratio of key nutrients was of critical importance in the development of fishpond plankton communities.
Keywords
fisheries management • phytoplankton • water quality • zooplankton