Wang Sirui, Liu Zhengwen, Su Xiaoqi, Jin Xiaotong, Jin Hui, Su Yaling, Wang Jianjun, Jeppesen Erik, Zhang Xiufeng, Tang Yali
Department of Ecology, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
State Key Laboratory of Lake and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Nanjing, China.
Front Microbiol. 2025 Mar 10;16:1544005. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1544005. eCollection 2025.
Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are vital to the physiological functioning of crustacean zooplankton. However, cyanobacteria blooms frequently lead to PUFA deficiencies, which poses a substantial challenge to population fitness. Therefore, we hypothesize that adapt to PUFA-deficient conditions by prioritizing PUFA allocation to somatic growth, and then to offspring during reproduction to ensure population persistence. To test this hypothesis, we applied (compound-specific) C labeling to compare the turnover of total carbon and certain groups of fatty acids in fed with for 6 days and then switching to a diet of C labeled for 6 days (with food quality deterioration) or to a diet of C-labeled (without food quality deterioration), respectively. Fatty acid profiles of mothers and offspring were also analyzed to reveal their PUFA allocation strategies. Life table parameters from -feeding switching to were compared with fed with only or to reveal the effect of PUFA allocation on performance. Our results showed that with food quality deterioration, exhibited a significantly lower PUFA and carbon turnover and higher offspring: mother ratios in their PUFA contents. Despite this reduced reproduction, the switching diets showed no significant different intrinsic increasing rate of populations with those fed only Meanwhile, the switching diets performed significantly better than fed only . These results suggest that differential fatty acid allocation of consumers may serve as an adaptive strategy for population maintenance in food quality deterioration and provide ecological implications with cyanobacterial bloom management and reproductive plasticity, which needs further explorations.
多不饱和脂肪酸（PUFAs）对甲壳类浮游动物的生理功能至关重要。然而，蓝藻水华频繁导致PUFA缺乏，这对种群适应性构成了重大挑战。因此，我们假设[某种生物]通过优先将PUFA分配到体细胞生长，然后在繁殖期间分配给后代，以适应PUFA缺乏的条件，从而确保种群的持续存在。为了验证这一假设，我们应用（化合物特异性）碳标记来比较在以[某种食物1]喂养6天，然后分别切换到以碳标记的[某种食物2]喂养6天（食物质量下降）或以碳标记的[某种食物3]喂养（食物质量未下降）的情况下，[某种生物]体内总碳和某些脂肪酸组的周转情况。我们还分析了[某种生物]母亲和后代的脂肪酸谱，以揭示它们的PUFA分配策略。将从[某种食物1]喂养切换到[某种食物2或3]喂养的[某种生物]的生命表参数与仅以[某种食物1]或[某种食物2]喂养的[某种生物]进行比较，以揭示PUFA分配对[某种生物]性能的影响。我们的结果表明，在食物质量下降的情况下，[某种生物]的PUFA和碳周转显著降低，其后代与母亲的PUFA含量比值更高。尽管繁殖减少，但切换饮食的[某种生物]种群的内在增长率与仅以[某种食物1]喂养的种群没有显著差异。同时，切换饮食的[某种生物]表现明显优于仅以[某种食物1]喂养的[某种生物]。这些结果表明，消费者不同的脂肪酸分配可能是在食物质量下降时维持种群的一种适应性策略，并为蓝藻水华管理和[某种生物]的生殖可塑性提供了生态学启示，这需要进一步探索。
