Zooplankton community and its environmental driving factors in Ulungur Lake, China

Figures & data

Figure 1. Location of the study area and the sampling sites in Ulungur Lake.

Table 1. The seasonal variations of water environmental factors in Ulungur Lake.

Water environmental factors	Buluntuohai Lake				Jili Lake
	Spring	Summer	Autumn	P value	Spring	Summer	Autumn	P value
WT (°C)	8.927 ± 1.407	22.459 ± 1.216	13.368 ± 0.904	0.000	10.783 ± 0.117	22.817 ± 0.665	15.483 ± 0.117	0.000
pH	8.879 ± 0.034	9.101 ± 0.039	8.986 ± 0.077	0.000	8.457 ± 0.016	8.908 ± 0.098	8.438 ± 0.029	0.000
SD (m)	3.802 ± 0.616	2.432 ± 0.327	1.382 ± 0.208	0.000	1.800 ± 0.179	1.516 ± 0.100	1.167 ± 0.137	0.000
D (m)	14.909 ± 5.080	15.332 ± 3.898	16.227 ± 4.763	0.627	15.000 ± 3.779	15.122 ± 1.821	15.583 ± 2.558	0.944
TP (mg/L)	0.005 ± 0.010	0.015 ± 0.015	0.018 ± 0.010	0.000	0.011 ± 0.006	0.076 ± 0.018	0.058 ± 0.007	0.000
TN (mg/L)	0.678 ± 1.973	0.957 ± 0.105	0.886 ± 0.110	0.704	0.200 ± 0.011	0.646 ± 0.048	0.709 ± 0.089	0.000
NH4^+-N (mg/L)	0.175 ± 0.036	0.195 ± 0.041	0.317 ± 0.145	0.000	0.187 ± 0.045	0.264 ± 0.055	0.260 ± 0.095	0.128
NO3-N (mg/L)	0.545 ± 0.129	0.415 ± 0.081	0.251 ± 0.041	0.000	0.685 ± 0.162	0.172 ± 0.095	0.109 ± 0.011	0.000
NO2-N (mg/L)	0.002 ± 0.002	0.008 ± 0.004	0.006 ± 0.004	0.000	0.008 ± 0.005	0.011 ± 0.002	0.015 ± 0.003	0.009
CODMn (mg/L)	5.783 ± 0.415	3.064 ± 0.615	7.089 ± 0.649	0.000	5.027 ± 0.239	3.485 ± 0.108	5.611 ± 0.327	0.000
Chl. a (μg/L)	0.025 ± 0.068	0.080 ± 0.151	0.782 ± 0.298	0.000	1.449 ± 0.579	0.946 ± 0.685	0.372 ± 0.247	0.012
TLI	28	30	39		33	39	39	TLI
Trophic state	oligotrophic	mesotrophic	mesotrophic		mesotrophic	mesotrophic	mesotrophic	Trophic state

Figure 2. Diagram of zooplankton species composition in Ulungur Lake.

Figure 3. Results of inverse distance weighted (IDW) interpolation of the zooplankton biomass in Ulungur Lake during the spring, summer, and autumn.

Table 2. Classification of zooplankton functional groups of Ulungur Lake.

Functional group	Abbreviation	Feeding habits	Body size	Zooplankton species
Protozoan filter feeders	PF	Filter-feeding, feeding on bacteria, phytoplankton, and organic detritus		Titinnophsis sinensis Difflugia sp. Difflugia avellana Tintinnidium fluviatile Didinium balbianii nanum Strombidium viride Strombidium sp. Strobilidium sp. Vorticella sp. Centropyxis aculeata Pontigulasia sp. Ciliophora sp.
Rotifer filter feeders	RF	Filter-feeding, feeding on bacteria, phytoplankton, and organic detritus		Filinia longiseta Keratella cochlearis Keratella valga Keratella quadrata Brachionus angularia Brachionus quadridentatus Brachionus calyciflorus Conochilus sp. Rotaria roratoria
Rotifer carnivores	RC	Carnivorous-feeding, feeding on protozoan, other rotifer, and small crustacean		Synchaeta sp. Polyarthra trigla Trichocerca sp. Trichocerca pusilla Asplanchna sp.
Small copepod and cladoceran filter feeders	SCF	Filter-feeding, feeding on bacteria, phytoplankton, organic detritus, and protozoan	< 0.7 mm	Copepod Bosmina sp. Bosmina longirostris Bosmina coregoni Bosmina fatalis Chydorus sphaericus Chydorus ovalis Ceriodaphnia cornuta Cladoceran Harpacticoida Nitocra sp. Limnoithona sp. Limnoithona sinensis Copepodid Nauplii Ostracoda
Mid-sized copepod and cladoceran filter feeders	MCF	Filter-feeding, feeding on bacteria, phytoplankton, organic detritus, and protozoan	0.7–1.5 mm	Cladoceran Eucyclops serrulatus
Mid-sized copepod and cladoceran carnivora	MCC	Carnivorous-feeding, feeding on rotifer, cladoceran, dipster (chironomidae larvae), and oligochaeta	0.7–1.5 mm	Cladoceran Thermocyclops sp. Thermocyclops hyalinus Mesocyclops leuckarti
Large copepod and cladoceran filter feeders	LCF	Filter-feeding, feeding on bacteria, phytoplankton, organic detritus, and protozoan	> 1.5 mm	Cladoceran Sinocalanus sp. Sinocalanus dorii Schmackeria sp.

Table 3. Abundance and biomass of zooplankton functional group of Ulungur Lake.

Zooplankton Functional groups	Abundance (ind./L)			Biomass (mg/L)
	Spring	Summer	Autumn	Spring	Summer	Autumn
PF	–	9.11	53.93	–	0.0005	0.0027
RF	45.00	3.75	76.43	0.0540	0.0045	0.0917
RC	2.79	–	92.50	0.0033	–	0.1110
SCF	0.96	4.27	15.52	0.0042	0.0562	0.0935
MCF	–	–	0.004	–	–	0.00003
MCC	0.004	0.007	0.09	0.00003	0.0001	0.0006
LCF	0.002	0.11	0.80	0.00001	0.0008	0.0056

Figure 4. Relative biomass of zooplankton functional groups in Ulungur Lake (a), and in its two constituent parts, Buluntuohai Lake (b) and Jili Lake (c).

Figure 5. Distribution of zooplankton functional groups biomass of Buluntuohai Lake (a) and Jili Lake (b) in Ulungur Lake.

Figure 6. Ordination biplot of redundancy analysis (RDA) between dominant species of zooplankton and water environmental factors (a), and that between zooplankton functional groups and water environmental factors (b).

Table 4. Significant Pearson correlation coefficient between the biomass of zooplankton functional groups.

Functional groups	PF	RF	RC	SCF	LCF	MCC	MCF
PF	1	0.725	0.983	0.895	0.999*	0.993	0.987
RF	0.725	1	0.839	0.341	0.749	0.802	0.825
RC	0.983	0.839	1	0.797	0.989	0.998*	1.000*
SCF	0.895	0.341	0.797	1	0.878	0.835	0.813
LCF	0.999*	0.749	0.989	0.878	1	0.996	0.992
MCC	0.993	0.802	0.998*	0.835	0.996	1	0.999*
MCF	0.987	0.825	1.000*	0.813	0.992	0.999*	1

Note: Statistical significance: ^*P < 0.05, PF (protozoan filter feeders), RF (rotifer filter feeders), RC (rotifer carnivores), SCF (small copepod and cladoceran filter feeders), MCF (mid-sized copepod and cladoceran filter feeders), MCC (mid-sized copepod and cladoceran carnivores), LCF (large copepod and cladoceran filter feeders).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author [TH].