Zooplankton diversity in Lake Tondano, Indonesia

Abstract

Study on freshwater ecology have been long focused on subtropical habitats with few references to tropical regions including Indonesia. Zooplankton, in particular, is an important component of aquatic ecosystem as they are key player of aquatic food webs, thus a solid understanding of their community structure can be of direct benefit to freshwater ecosystem management. The spatial patterns of zooplankton diversity in Lake Tondano, Celebes Island - Indonesia were studies in 2013, with the main aim was to understand how local environmental and habitat heterogeneity driving the zooplankton community structure. We performed field samplings to collect zooplankton using a vertical tow with a 156 µm mesh plankton net from 1 meter above sediment to the surface and to measure environmental parameters using portable multi probes water quality checker from three different water columns. The sampling sites were selected to include different habitats within the lake to look at diversity of the entire zooplankton communities including Rotifers, Cladocerans, and Copepods in Lake Tondano, Indonesia. A total of 21 species of cladocerans, 31 copepods, and 60 rotifers were identified from Lake Tondano. Our result indicates a relatively low number of cladocerans which is may be associated with high predatory pressure from planktivorous fish, especially within the open pelagic zone.