Global warming may intensify eutrophication of shallow lakes by affecting nutrient loading, evaporation rates, and water level and thus produce major changes in food webs. We investigated to what degree food webs in tropical humid lakes differed from those in more eutrophic semi-arid lakes of the same latitude. Our results indicate that the catchment area-to-lake area ratio, nutrients, chlorophyll a, suspended solids, abundances of phytoplankton, zooplankton, and omnivorous fish as well as total fish catch per unit effort were all higher in the semi-arid lakes, whereas inlet water-to-evaporation ratio (proxy for water balance), water transparency, percentage macrophytes cover, and the piscivores:omnivores ratio were higher in the humid lakes. Our results suggest that reduced inlet water-to-evaporation ratio will increase lake eutrophication, which, in turn, as in temperate regions, will alter trophic structure of the freshwater community.
1.Univ Fed Paraiba, Ctr Ciencias Agr, Dept Fitotecn & Ciencia Ambientais, Areia, Paraiba, Brazil 2.Univ Fed Rio Grande do Norte, Ctr Biociencias, Dept Ecol, Natal, RN, Brazil 3.Radboud Univ Nijmegen, Inst Water & Wetland Res, Dept Aquat Ecol & Environm Biol, Nijmegen, Netherlands 4.Univ Republ, Ctr Univ Reg Este, Ecol Func Sistemas Acuat, Rocha, Uruguay 5.Univ Fed Estado Rio De Janeiro UNIRIO, NEL, IB, Dept Zool, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil 6.Univ Fed Rio de Janeiro, Museu Nacl, Dept Bot, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil 7.Univ Miami, Dept Biol, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA 8.Aarhus Univ, Dept Biosci, Silkeborg, Denmark
Recommended Citation:
Menezes, Rosemberg Fernandes,Attayde, Jose Luiz,Kosten, Sarian,et al. Differences in food webs and trophic states of Brazilian tropical humid and semi-arid shallow lakes: implications of climate change[J]. HYDROBIOLOGIA,2019-01-01,829(1):95-111