Determinants of phytoplankton size structure in warm, shallow lakes

Body size is an important trait of any organism, including phytoplankton, because it affects physiological and morphological performance, reproduction, population growth rate and competitive interactions. Understanding how interacting top-down and bottom-up factors influence phytoplankton cell size in different aquatic environments is still a challenge. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a comprehensive multivariate statistical tool for detecting cause-effect relationship among different variables and their hierarchical structure in complex networks (e.g. trophic interactions in ecosystems). Here, several SEM models were employed to investigate the direct and indirect interaction pathways affecting the phytoplankton size structure in 44 mostly eutrophic and hypereutrophic permanent lakes in western Turkey. Among the 15 environmental variables tested, only rotifers and Carlson's Trophic Index (TSI) had significant direct positive effect on the mean phytoplankton size and size variance, respectively. The results indicate that both bottom-up and top-down factors significantly affect phytoplankton community size structure in eutrophic and hypereutrophic lakes in warm climates. Rotifer grazing increased the abundance of large-sized phytoplankton species, such as filamentous and colonial cyanobacteria and TSI affected phytoplankton size variance, with a higher size variance in hypereutrophic lakes.