Limnologica  Ecology and Management of Inland Waters 
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Scope:
Any aspects of limnology and hydrobiology of inland waters and adjacent
biotopes including any activities of benthonic, fish, neustonic, nektonic,
periphytic, planktonic communities and organisms together with their ecology,
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e-mail: bennd@rcs.urz.tu-dresden.de
e-mail: walter.geller@ufz.de
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Author: Claudia C Bonecker, D.; Fabio Azevedo; Nadson Ressyé Simões, D.
Title of paper: Zooplankton body-size in tropical floodplain lakes: an empirical test of size-efficiency
hypothesis.
Sugestion of this reviewer: Zooplankton body-size in tropical floodplain lakes: field evidence of sizeefficiency hypothesis.
Number of manuscript:
LIMNO-D-10-00099
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If you cannot review the article within six weeks, please, send it back to the editor immediately.
This ms brings interesting information showing that the predation pressure of fishes can partially
account for the structuring of zooplankton populations in small lakes in the Parana river flood plains.
The paper is well written, the authors show familiarity with the theoretical background of zooplankton
ecology and the investigation objectives are clear. The ms needs, however, substantial improvement
not only bringing more updated contributions to this topic (influence of predation on zooplankton) but
also on the existing (and increasing) investigations related to this theme on a regional basis. After,
reading this ms, in the present form, the potential reader gets the feeling that nothing is done so far
with respect to the potential influence of vertebrate as well invertebrate predation on zooplankton in
South American tropical waters, which it is not the case.
The authors also must justify their decision to use the pump method to collect zooplankton. There are
several references in the literature suggesting that the use of this method causes severe selection to
smaller zooplankton since larger zooplankters - such as diaptomids and chaoboridae - are able to
detect and avoid the pressure waves existing in the surroundings in the tube which is linked to the
motor.
Despite the citations (most old references) given by the authors to justify the use of formaline fixed
animals to determine the fresh weight, this is a well known source of potentially large errors in the
process of zooplankton samples to get their biomass. In my view, the authors should at least mention
more advanced techniques that are long established in the literature that can avoid this kind of error
as well as they should mention possible factors that can interfere on these estimations (sugar content,
type of organism, time and temperature of sample storage, etc).
The authors also could bring some justification about the decision to use the PCA analysis. It is not
clear the objective they had in mind to run this analysis. They also could have explored this abiotic
data matrix to a more extend in the discussion section. The observed differences in chemical variables
probably justify the proposal of a second hypothesis (that probably can be partially tested) attesting
the positive effect of nutrient and biomass of algae on the size patterns of zooplankton observed in
these lakes, as well.
The ms mention the existence of 113 species belonging to the zooplankton community in this array of
lakes. It is quite unlike that all of these species belong exclusively to this community and probably (due
to the fact that the lakes are small and shallow) many representatives of benthos and littoral
communities are also present.
I would suggest to the authors to perform the regression analysis between biomass and abundance of
zooplankton (Fig 8) using only the true zooplanktivorous fish species present in each lake individually.
The authors also should pay more attention to the differences between studied lakes regarding basic
morphometric features. A good example, would be the interesting lack of relationship between mean
depth and lake area. This probably suggests great differences in the hydrodynamics of these lakes.
This factor can also easily explain the observed differences in size of zooplankton since the retention
time plays a crucial role on size structure and composition of zooplankton.
Other minor suggestions:
a) Lines 71 and 72: the authors should cite the classical contributions of Robert Peters
(GRILL,Canada) to the topic of importance of size of organisms in Ecology;
b) Lines 83-84: the authors should mention several other important articles showing the trend of
greater dominance of smaller zooplankton in tropical lakes and reservoirs;
c) Line 118: in situ instead of in loco;
d) Line 120: use limnetic region instead of pelagic region
e) Line 168: NUPLELIA in capital letters, avoid without the “é”
f)
Line 203-204: explain the behaviour of lakes “A” in Fig. 3A and 3B.
g) Lines 320-333: There are several studies in the literature focused on the structural responses
of zooplankton to increases of chlorophyll-a as well as limiting nutrients (N and P) that should
be reviewed at this point by the authors.
h) Fig. 01- put the North direction in the map;
i)
Fig. 04 – explain the differences in the biomass and abundance observed in lakes D and F.
j)
Figs 05 and 06 – provide a clear legend on the figure and not in the caption
Frutal, Nov. 2nd, 2010
Ricardo Motta Pinto Coelho