Zooplankton exported from lentic systems provision lotic systems with easily captured, consumed, and assimilated prey items. Previous studies have demonstrated that zooplankton exports vary over time as a function of diel migration of the plankton and structural complexity of the outfall, introducing temporal differences in lotic resource availability (zooplankton prey) in downstream habitats. In the study presented here we monitored variation in the community composition of zooplankton exports from a polymictic reservoir outfall in response to daily (light) cycles and wind disturbance.
Results/Conclusions
The community composition of exported zooplankton varied over the course of the day and exports were most closely associated with the directionality of the wind, not light. Future studies of temporal variation in zooplankton exports should incorporate wind disturbance, especially in shallow systems where holomixis occurs frequently. Such systems are becoming increasingly common globally as the pace of construction of small dams quickens, making both the identification of factors influencing zooplankton exports and the impact of those exports on local biodiversity and ecosystem function increasingly important to understand.