From the Individual to the Population and Beyond

Abstract

Zooplankton are important links in pelagic food webs of oceans and lakes. This holds for herbivores like most cladocerans, or omnivores like cyclopoid and calanoid copepods, but also for predators as many species of Euphausia are, for example. Ontogenetic changes between herbivores, omnivores and carnivores are common and intertwined, which makes that the food web cannot be linearly arranged Diel vertical migration has considerable consequences for the dynamics of pelagic populations and the composition of the relational web. Migrations change intra- and interspecific competition, and thus community composition. These are all species-specific effects and the previously discussed uniformity of responses to light stimuli, which made generalisations about the causation of DVM possible, has disappeared.