Abstract
Shredder feeding is a vital process in making decomposition products available to biota in streams. To investigate which food sources shredders in open-canopy streams exploit, we conducted a feeding preference experiment with the invertebrate detritivores Limnephilus bipunctatus and Nemoura sp., which are commonly found in open-canopy streams on the Swedish island of Öland in the southern Baltic Sea. Leaves of birch, Swedish whitebeam, and shrubby cinquefoil; dead and fresh grass; water moss; and algae were offered to the shredders in multi- and single treatments. We hypothesized that food with high nutritional value would be preferred. Both taxa preferred leaves of shrubby cinquefoil, a bush common in the riparian zone of Öland streams; additionally Nemoura sp. also chose algae. Dead grass, the most abundant food source in the streams during the whole year, was the least consumed food type. The fresh food types had highest nutritional value, measured as carbon to nitrogen content. Therefore, food quality could not alone explain the preference of shrubby cinquefoil. However, among the detritus type offered, shrubby cinquefoil had the highest nutritional value. Shrubby cinquefoil may constitute one important energy source to these open-canopy stream ecosystems and may be essential in maintaining an abundant shredder community in these streams. Thus, the results of this study indicate that detrital resources are indeed important in open-canopy stream systems.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Mats Iversjö for help with sorting of CPOM samples and Christina Esplund for running the CHN analyzer. Thanks also to Jan Herrmann and Patrik Stenroth for valuable comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript and to Peter Travis for language review. Three anonymous referees provided helpful comments on the manuscript. This study was funded by the Faculty Board of Natural Science and Engineering at University of Kalmar.
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Leberfinger, K., Bohman, I. Grass, mosses, algae, or leaves? Food preference among shredders from open-canopy streams. Aquat Ecol 44, 195–203 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10452-009-9268-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10452-009-9268-1