Benthic grazing and functional compensation in stressed and recovered lakes

摘要: During ecosystem recovery, grazing pressure is expected to increase as larger herbivores become reestablished. Alternatively, may remain unchanged during recovery large consumers replace and functionally compensate for more abundant populations of smaller, tolerant herbivores. We tested these hypotheses by conducting a 90-day experiment in which three size categories benthic were excluded from producers chemically stressed recovered lakes. Our findings showed that did not significantly affect producer biomass either type lake. However, exposure grazers induce physiognomic shift towards less edible the In comparison, lakes contained greater diversity. Comparison observed subtle effects pronounced negative impact stress on suggest they can natural disturbances...