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Implications of resting eggs of zooplankton for the paradox of enrichment
Author(s) -
Nakazawa Takefumi,
Kuwamura Masataka,
Yamamura Norio
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
population ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.819
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1438-390X
pISSN - 1438-3896
DOI - 10.1007/s10144-010-0226-5
Subject(s) - zooplankton , biology , daphnia , ecology , resting state fmri , cladocera , hatching , zoology , plankton , algae , neuroscience
In this study, we numerically investigated to what extent introducing resting‐egg dynamics would stabilize simple Daphnia –algae consumer–resource models. In the models, the density of viable resting eggs was explicitly expressed, and we assumed that zooplankton produced resting eggs seasonally or in response to food deficiency and that resting eggs hatched seasonally. The models predicted that, although the paradox of enrichment was not completely resolved (i.e., the system was destabilized by eutrophication), we found the following conditions under which the stabilizing effects of resting eggs would be significantly large: (1) resting eggs are produced seasonally (rather than in response to food deficiency), (2) the annual average allocation ratio to resting eggs is large, and (3) the annual average hatching rate of resting eggs is low. The results suggest that resting‐egg dynamics can significantly reduce the paradox of enrichment within the biologically meaningful parameter space and contribute to the stability of plankton community dynamics.