Competition of Cladocerans for Natural Seston from a Tropical Shallow Lake

The planktonic cladocerans Ceriodaphnia richardi, Daphnia gessneri, and birgei inhabit the limnetic littoral zones of Lake Monte Alegre, where former species tends to be abundant. Laboratory experiments were carried out investigate competition for seston in using life table data. In experiment 1, C. richardi D. gessneri fed from zone (1–1.29 mg C L−1); 2, zone. Despite relatively high concentration sestonic algae (0.96–1 L−1), with predominance nanoplankton, outcompeted seston. benefited presence each other seston, nanoplankton predominated, increases some parameters table. birgei, however, showed better reproductive performance than richardi. A comparison between results suggests that zone, terms quantity quality, is