The effects of dietary Microcystis aeruginosa and microcystin on the copepods of the upper San Francisco Estuary

Summary 1. Increasing blooms of Microcystis aeruginosa have unknown impacts on the copepods Eurytemora affinis and Pseudodiaptomus forbesi , which are the dominant zooplankters and key prey species for endangered larval fish in the upper San Francisco Estuary. 2. Laboratory feeding experiments were designed to measure the effect of Microcystis on copepod survival and to distinguish the effects of toxicity and nutrition. In a series of survival tests, copepods were fed a mixed diet of algae plus one of two strains of Microcystis , either producing (MC+) or lacking microcystin (MC−). 3. Microcystis significantly reduced survival even when it was a small proportion of the diet, indicating that toxicity was the major cause of mortality. Contrary to expectation, however, the MC+ strain did not result in higher mortality, suggesting that non‐MC metabolites of Microcystis can be toxic to copepods. 4. Across treatments, survival of P. forbesi was greater than that of E. affinis , although the two copepods responded differently to both the ratio and the strain of Microcystis in their food. Survival of P. forbesi was greater on the MC+ strain and was inversely proportional to the ratio of dietary Microcystis (MC+ or MC−). In contrast, survival of E. affinis declined similarly across treatments and was not related to the proportion or strain of dietary Microcystis . Results indicate that the copepod P. forbesi can coexist with Microcystis while the other copepod E. affinis cannot. 5. Regardless of species, dietary Microcystis caused significant mortality to copepods, and it may cause adverse impacts to the potentially food‐limited zooplankton community of the San Francisco Estuary. These impacts may not be related to the cellular MC concentration because Microcystis contains other metabolites that negatively affect copepods.