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Project properties |
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| Title | Warming and herbivory in aquatic ecosystems |
| Group | Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Group |
| Project type | internship |
| Credits | 24=36 |
| Supervisor(s) | Liesbeth Bakker (NIOO: L.Bakker@nioo.knaw.nl)
Peiyu Zhang (NIOO: P.Zhang@nioo.knaw.nl) Edwin Peeters (WUR: edwin.peeters@wur.nl) |
| Examiner(s) | Edwin Peeters |
| Contact info | Edwin Peeters |
| Begin date | 2016/09/01 |
| End date | 2017/02/28 |
| Description | Climate warming has threatened our planet, and strongly impacted our ecosystems. Trophic interactions are also altered by climate warming. Since most of the aquatic animals are omnivorous, and herbivory is more popular at lower latitudes, temperature may play an important role in this trend. So will the omnivores shift their diet to more plant materials in a warmer environment? To answer the question, we are going to rear three aquatic animals: Pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis, gamarid Gammarus pulex and crayfish Procambarus clarkii at different temperatures, offering them with enough animal and plant food ad libitum. Then we will use the stable isotope method to analyze their diet composition, to see if they will shift their diet to more plants at the higher temperature.
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| Used skills | interest in aquatic animals, animal ecology, experimental skills |
| Requirements | |