Dietary flexibility in three representative waterbirds across salinity and depth gradients in salt ponds of San Francisco Bay

Salt evaporation ponds have existed in San Francisco Bay, California, for more than a century. In the past decade, most of the salt ponds have been retired from production and purchased for resource conservation with a focus on tidal marsh restoration. However, large numbers of waterbirds are found in salt ponds, especially during migration and wintering periods. The value of these hypersaline wetlands for waterbirds is not well understood, including how different avian foraging guilds use invertebrate prey resources at different salinities and depths. The aim of this study was to investigate the dietary flexibility of waterbirds by examining the population number and diet of three feeding guilds across a salinity and depth gradient in former salt ponds of the Napa-Sonoma Marshes. Although total invertebrate biomass and species richness were greater in low than high salinity salt ponds, waterbirds fed in ponds that ranged from low (20 g l⁻¹) to very high salinities (250 g l⁻¹). American avocets (surface sweeper) foraged in shallow areas at pond edges and consumed a wide range of prey types (8) including seeds at low salinity, but preferred brine flies at mid salinity (40–80 g l⁻¹). Western sandpipers (prober) focused on exposed edges and shoal habitats and consumed only a few prey types (2–4) at both low and mid salinities. Suitable depths for foraging were greatest for ruddy ducks (diving benthivore) that consumed a wide variety of invertebrate taxa (5) at low salinity, but focused on fewer prey (3) at mid salinity. We found few brine shrimp, common in higher salinity waters, in the digestive tracts of any of these species. Dietary flexibility allows different guilds to use ponds across a range of salinities, but their foraging extent is limited by available water depths. Guest Editors: J. John & B. Timms Salt Lake Research: Biodiversity and Conservation—Selected papers from the 9th Conference of the International Society for Salt Lake Research     

Variability in habitat value of commercial salt production ponds: implications for waterbird management and tidal marsh restoration planning

Salt evaporation ponds are used in place of lost natural estuarine habitats for foraging and roosting by waterbirds around the world, but have started to be decommissioned in some areas due to low profitability. In San Francisco Bay, three former salt pond complexes (Alviso, Eden Landing, and Ravenswood) have been decommissioned, i.e., taken out of commission, and are planned for marsh restoration. We compared total and foraging abundance and densities of ducks, shorebirds, and piscivores, as well as eared grebes (Podiceps nigricollis) among decommissioned and commercial pond complexes. Complex use was consistent within groups and variable among groups, with most use occurring in decommissioned ponds: 73% of ducks were observed in the Alviso complex and 9% in the commercial ponds; 51% of shorebirds were in the Eden Landing complex and only 17% in commercial ponds; and 56% of piscivores were in the Alviso complex and <18% in commercial ponds. Only eared grebes were more abundant (59%) in commercial ponds. Differences among groups in within-complex and within-pond abundance were likely related to pond salinity and topography, respectively. Our results suggest that the effects of pond conversion on waterbird groups may be disproportionate to pond area depending on the characteristics of the converted ponds.     

Trophic structure and avian communities across a salinity gradient in evaporation ponds of the San Francisco Bay estuary

Commercial salt evaporation ponds comprise a large proportion of baylands adjacent to the San Francisco Bay, a highly urbanized estuary. In the past two centuries, more than 79% of the historic tidal wetlands in this estuary have been lost. Resource management agencies have acquired more than 10 000 ha of commercial salt ponds with plans to undertake one of the largest wetland restoration projects in North America. However, these plans have created debate about the ecological importance of salt ponds for migratory bird communities in western North America. Salt ponds are unique mesohaline (5–18 g l⁻¹) to hyperhaline (> 40 g l⁻¹) wetlands, but little is known of their ecological structure or value. Thus, we studied decommissioned salt ponds in the North Bay of the San Francisco Bay estuary from January 1999 through November 2001. We measured water quality parameters (salinity, DO, pH, temperature), nutrient concentrations, primary productivity, zooplankton, macroinvertebrates, fish, and birds across a range of salinities from 24 to 264 g l⁻¹. Our studies documented how unique limnological characteristics of salt ponds were related to nutrient levels, primary productivity rates, invertebrate biomass and taxa richness, prey fish, and avian predator numbers. Salt ponds were shown to have unique trophic and physical attributes that supported large numbers of migratory birds. Therefore, managers should carefully weigh the benefits of increasing habitat for native tidal marsh species with the costs of losing these unique hypersaline systems.     

Nutrient limitation of phytoplankton in solar salt ponds in Shark Bay,Western Australia

The aim of this research was to examine nutrient limitation of phytoplankton in solar salt ponds of varying salinity at Useless Inlet in Western Australia. These ponds use solar energy to evaporate seawater for the purpose of commercial salt production. A combination of techniques involving water column nutrient ratios, comparisons of nutrient concentrations to concentration of magnesium ions and bioassays were used in the investigation. Comparisons of changes in dissolved inorganic nitrogen to phosphorus ratios and concentrations of dissolved inorganic nutrients against changes in concentrations of the conservative cation Mg²⁺ indicated that phytoplankton biomass was potentially nitrogen limited along the entire pond salinity gradient. Nutrient addition bioassays indicated that in low salinity ponds, phytoplankton was nitrogen limited but in high salinity ponds, phosphorus limited. This may be due to isolation of phytoplankton in bioassay bottles from in situ conditions as well as to changes in phytoplankton species composition between ponds, and the variable availability of inorganic and organic nutrient sources. The differences in limiting nutrient between methods indicate that phytoplankton cells may be proximally limited by nutrients that are not theoretically limiting at the pond scale. Dissolved organic nutrients constituted a large proportion of total nutrients, with concentrations increasing through the pond sequence of increasing salinity. From the change in nutrient concentrations in bioassay bottles, sufficient dissolved organic nitrogen may be available for phytoplankton uptake in low salinity ponds, potentially alleviating the dissolved inorganic nitrogen limitation of phytoplankton biomass. Guest Editors: J. John & B. Timms Salt Lake Research: Biodiversity and Conservation—Selected Papers from the 9th Conference of the International Society for Salt Lake Research     

The role of zooplankton in the ecological succession of plankton and benthic algae across a salinity gradient in the Shark Bay solar salt ponds

The relatively low biodiversity and simple hydrodynamics make solar salt ponds ideal sites for ecological studies. We have studied the ecological gradient of the primary ponds at the Shark Bay Resources solar salt ponds, Western Australia, using a coupled hydrodynamic ecological numerical model, DYRESM–CAEDYM. Seven ponds representative of the primary system were simulated with salinity ranging from 45 to 155 ppt. Five groups of organisms were simulated: three phytoplankton, one microbial mat plankton, and one zooplankton as well as dissolved inorganic and particulate organic nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon. By extracting the various carbon fluxes from the model, we determined the role that the introduced zooplankton, Artemia sp., plays in grazing the particulate organic carbon (POC) from the water column in the high salinity ponds. We also examined the nutrient fluxes and stoichiometric ratios of the various organic components for each pond to establish the extent to which observed patterns in nutrient dynamics are mediated by the presence of Artemia sp. Model results indicated that Artemia sp. grazing was responsible for reduced water column POC in the higher salinity ponds. This resulted in an increase in photosynthetic available radiation (PAR) reaching the pond floor and consequent increase in microbial mat biomass, thus demonstrating the dual benefits of Artemia sp. to salt production in improved quality and quantity. In contrast, this study found no direct link between Artemia sp. and observed changes in planktonic algal species composition or nutrient limitation across the salinity gradient of the ponds. Guest Editors: J. John & B. Timms Salt Lake Research: Biodiversity and Conservation—Selected Papers from the 9th Conference of the International Society for Salt Lake Research     

Transition from Planktonic to Benthic Algal Dominance Along a Salinity Gradient

Highly regulated salinity gradients in solar salt pond concentrating sequences provide an opportunity to investigate in situ salinity impacts on aquatic flora and fauna. The Shark Bay Salt solar ponds at Useless Inlet in Western Australia vary in salinity from seawater to four times seawater over the pond sequence. We observed a shift from planktonic to benthic primary productivity as salinity increased. Water column photosynthesis and biomass decreased markedly with increasing salinity, while benthic productivity increased as cyanobacterial mats developed. Correspondingly, productivity shifted from autotrophy to heterotrophy in the water column and from heterotrophy to autotrophy in the benthos. Both shifts occurred at intermediate salinity (S = 110 g kg⁻¹, ρ = 1.087 g cm⁻³) in the pond sequence, where there was little production by either. Within individual ponds, productivity, algal biomass and physico-chemical conditions were relatively constant over one year, with only water column photosynthesis significantly different between seasons, mostly due to greater winter production. Transitions between benthic and planktonic production and their relative magnitudes appear to be driven mostly by direct responses to salinity stress, but also by changes in nutrient availability and grazing, which are also influenced by salinity.     

Waterbird mortality in hypersaline environments: the Wyoming trona ponds

Each year hundreds of salt-encrusted waterbirds, mainly Eared Grebes (Podiceps nigricollis Brehm) die at evaporation ponds of the trona (soda ash) industry in southwestern Wyoming. Clinical investigations attributed the mortality to sodium toxicity because high levels of sodium were found in brains of grebes salvaged from the ponds. This was puzzling because natural history information shows that this species resides in saline and hypersaline environments for most of the year. In addition, field observations gave no indication that grebes at the ponds were ingesting salt or salt crystals. Further, the salt glands were not hypertrophied and gavage experiments showed that healthy birds were able to ingest trona pond water without ill effect. Carcasses immersed in pond water, however, attained brain sodium levels far exceeding those considered toxic within a few hours, indicating that the high levels considered as causal probably resulted from post-mortem events. We attribute the mortality to complications of salt encrustation, notably impaired thermoregulation. Other purported cases of sodium toxicity involving encrusted birds at industrial ponds or hypersaline situations may have a similar etiology.     

Avian communities in baylands and artificial salt evaporation ponds of the San Francisco Bay estuary

San Francisco Bay wetlands, seasonal and tidal marshes between the historic low and high tide lines, are now highly fragmented because of development during the past 150 years. Artificial salt pond systems in the Bay are hypersaline and typically support simple assemblages of algae and invertebrates. In order to establish the value of salt ponds for migratory waterbirds, we used datasets to conduct a meta-analysis of avian communities in the baylands and salt ponds of San Pablo Bay. Fifty-three species of waterbirds in the salt ponds represented six foraging guilds: surface feeders, shallow probers, deep probers, dabblers, diving benthivores and piscivores. The total number of species and the Shannon-Weiner diversity index was higher in baylands than in salt ponds during all four seasons. However, overall bird density (number/ha) was higher in salt ponds compared with baylands in the winter and spring, primarily because of large concentrations of benthivores. Cessation of salt production in 1993 and subsequent reduction in water depth resulted in a decline of some diving duck populations that used the salt ponds.     

Fish diversity as a determinant of ecosystem properties across multiple trophic levels

Biodiversity has been established as a potential determinant of function in many ecosystems; however, previous research has mostly focused on primary producers and effects at a single trophic level. A broader perspective that considers multiple components of food webs is necessary to understand natural systems. In particular, consumer diversity needs to be more thoroughly examined as trophic interactions and indirect effects can alter ecosystem properties. We test the potential for consumer diversity (fish richness and composition) to govern food web dynamics at two levels of environmental complexity (mesocosms and experimental ponds) and explore the consequences of removing individual species of fish on lower trophic levels. In mesocosms, both the richness and density of zooplankton were reduced when more fish species were present. No effects from the fish treatments were found on phytoplankton, but phosphorus levels increased with higher fish richness. Removing either generalist or specialist fish species increased the richness and density of zooplankton and the amount of phytoplankton, whereas all fish species had redundant effects on nutrients. In ponds, a dominant fish species (specialist shiner) determined the richness and density of zooplankton. In contrast, phytoplankton and nutrients were reduced by higher fish richness in the fall and spring. Overall, the specialist shiner had unique effects on the pond food web suggesting the key to understanding function is the presence of a dominant species and their biological interactions. Differences between mesocosms and ponds are likely due to increased heterogeneity of resources in the ponds allowing species to specialize on different prey. Our study links the biodiversity ecosystem function paradigm with food web concepts to improve predictions for conservation and management actions in response to changes in biodiversity.     

Phylogenetic relatedness of co‐occurring waterbird communities: a test of Darwin's competition‐relatedness hypothesis

The competition–relatedness hypothesis of Darwin states that competition is greater among species that are phylogenetically closely‐related, and such species will tend to appear in separate communities (i.e. the species within communities will be phylogenetically overdispersed). Many studies have tested (and mainly refuted) this hypothesis for plant and bacterial communities. Results for the few studies with avian species are not conclusive. We tested Darwin's hypothesis for waterbirds using a set of open, artificial fish ponds in Doñana, south‐western Spain, that provide relatively homogeneous habitat where competition is likely to be intense. Monthly counts of 38 ponds (for 11 months, i.e. 418 censuses) recorded 76 bird species. Darwin's hypothesis predicted that species appearing in the same pond would be less related phylogenetically than expected if species occurred randomly across ponds and months according to the structure of the overall community across the entire pond complex. However, the waterbird community did not show a predominantly overdispersed pattern, suggesting that interspecific competition among phylogenetically related species was not the main force structuring communities. In contrast, the proportion of clustered communities was higher than expected throughout the annual cycle, indicating that related waterbirds tend to co‐occur on the same site, probably because they have similar microhabitat preferences. Clustering patterns were mainly driven by abundant and closely related duck species, and also by shorebirds. However, few individual pond communities remained significantly different from random after correction for multiple testing. Furthermore, the probability of co‐occurrence of a given species pair was negatively related to the phylogenetic distance between them. In conclusion, our study shows waterbird communities are mainly phylogenetically clustered or random, and do not support the competition‐relatedness hypothesis.     

Patterns in the organization of Cerrado pond biodiversity in Brazilian pasture landscapes

There is a worldwide concern on the loss of pond biodiversity in human dominated landscapes. Nevertheless, agricultural activities appear to increase pond number in the Brazilian Cerrado through damming streams for cattle raising. These man-made ponds may represent important landscape features, but their importance to regional biodiversity has not yet been studied. Here, we evaluated differences in alpha and beta diversity under a multi-taxonomic approach, as well as tested pond size as the main driver of local species richness. We also assessed the importance of environmental heterogeneity through the analysis of the regional species accumulation curves (SAC). The overall result suggests that species turnover was the major component of regional biodiversity for all groups. Major physical and chemical water conditions had no effects on algae, macrophytes, water bugs, and birds species richness. Pond size had a significant effect on Odonata and fish species richness, while water beetles and amphibians were influenced by trophic conditions. Results from regional SAC show variations among different taxonomic groups regarding landscape heterogeneity: only algae, fish, and birds do not reached to an asymptote and had higher z-values. Our results highlight the importance of ponds for biodiversity conservation in increasingly agricultural landscapes in central Brazil.     

Comparative metabolic diversity in two solar salterns

The purpose of this study was to compare the metabolic diversity of the whole microbial community in an oligotrophic saltern (Eilat, Israel) and in a saltern with a more enriched source water (Newark, California). Between 1993 and 1998 water samples were taken from selected locations within the solar salterns of the Cargill Solar Salt Plant, Newark, California, and the Israel Salt Co. in Eilat, Israel. To examine the whole community metabolic diversity, we used the 96-well BIOLOG GN^{{ TM}} plates which contain 95 different carbon sources and a control well. Plates from samples containing greater than 15% salt were excluded from the final analyses because of a lack of reproducibility when multiple plates were inoculated with the same sample. The data were analyzed by simple matching coefficient and principal component analysis. Both methods gave similar results. Two major clusters were formed. These could be subdivided into 10 sub-clusters with only three samples from the Newark saltern in December 1997 joining at the 95% similarity level. Most of the inlet and lower salinity samples from the Cargill samples comprised one large subcluster. Several carbon sources were used by 85% of the microbial community from the California samples, while 85% of the Eilat samples had no commonly used carbon sources. These results suggest that ponds in different geographic locations may have communities with different microbial populations despite the similarities in salt content and processing for salt production.     

Carbon sources and trophic structure in a macrophyte‐dominated polyculture pond assessed by stable‐isotope analysis

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Trends in the use of a small coastal lagoon by waterbirds: Muni Lagoon (Ghana)

This paper presents data from a twelve-year (1986–98) monitoring of waterbird populations at Muni Lagoon, and discusses the ornithological importance of the lagoon and trends in the use of the site by waterbirds. The small brackish lagoon forms part of the Muni-Pomadze Ramsar site situated on the Ghana coast. A total of 48 species of waterbirds were recorded at the site comprising of 29 species of waders, eight species of terns, two species of gulls, seven species of herons and egrets, one species each of duck and cormorant. The most abundant waterbirds species recorded on the site were the Curlew Sandpiper, Ringed Plover, Greenshank, Black-winged Stilt, Common Tern, Black Tern, Royal Tern and the Sandwich Tern. Three species of waders, Black-winged Stilt, Pratincole and Little Tern were observed to breed at the site. The highest numbers of waterbirds occurred on the site in the period September to March. The site remains an internationally important wetland site by virtue of supporting internationally important numbers of four species of terns: Royal Tern, Sandwich Tern, Common Tern and Black Tern. The value of Muni lies more in its use as a feeding/staging site for migrating waders that spend the non-breeding season in Ghana or pass through to winter further south, and as a roosting site for terns which feed mainly at sea. The use of the site by waterbirds has increased by some 400% between 1986 and 1998. This is attributed to improved prey availability resulting from the opening of the lagoon into the sea during the 1994 floods, and reduced disturbance of feeding and roosting birds. This would imply that the value of the site as waterbird habitat could improve considerably with appropriate habitat management interventions and continued protection.     

Community structure of macrobenthos in homestead ponds of Noakhali coast,Bangladesh

The integrity of the homestead pond supply depends on how various macrobenthic communities make their living more diversified and contribute to complex food webs. In addition, the macrobenthic community are significantly used as indicator organisms to detect the pollution impacts in aquatic ecosystems. In this study, we show the data about the diversity and community structure of macrobenthos and their relationship with environmental variables in homestead ponds of Noakhali coast from January 2019 to August 2019. The current study yielded 17 species belonging to seven taxonomic groups with a mean density of 3630 ind./m². The Nematode community, comprising 48.86% of the total taxonomic groups with Prionchulus sp. as the dominant macrobenthic species represented more than 31% of the total macrobenthic taxa, and showed a significant negative correlation with the value of salinity, DO, pH. The environmental variables and diversity indices were detected significant variations (P < 0.05) among stations by the Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA, whereas Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index (H´) assessed moderate pollution, Evenness index (J) assessed uniform distributions of macrobenthic community, and environmental variables showed acceptable condition for the productivity of ponds. Cluster analysis (CA) and Non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) demonstrate demarcations in the community structure of macrobenthos between samples. Within macrobenthic communities, Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) provided insights and interpretations of the relationships between species and environmental gradients. Macrobenthic community reached the most abundance at a lower temperature, transparency and a higher DO, pH and salinity.     

Agricultural ponds as alternative habitat for waterbirds: spatial and temporal patterns of abundance and management strategies

The progressive lost of natural wetlands as a consequence of human activities has lead to the use of new habitats by the species linked to water presence. In Southeast Spain, thousands of irrigation ponds have been lately constructed to store water for agriculture and are used by waterbirds as an alternative habitat. For this study, breeding and wintering waterbirds were counted in a subset of irrigation ponds between 2002 and 2007. Breeding communities were more abundant than wintering communities, but they presented a similar richness and diversity. The ponds were selected by waterbirds according to their characteristics, and breeding communities were more selective than wintering communities. Our results enhance the importance of pond size (area), connectivity (distance to the nearest wetland) and habitat quality (resource offer and construction material) in the pond selection process. The presence and design of these impoundments could be playing a crucial role for some waterbirds species. Therefore, the long-term information provided here can be useful for establishing management strategies for these artificial wetlands.     

Trophic interactions and consequent impacts of the invasive fish Pseudorasbora parva in a native aquatic foodweb: a field investigation in the UK

Introduction of the invasive Asian cyprinid fish Pseudorasbora parva into a 0.3 ha pond in England with a fish assemblage that included Cyprinus carpio, Rutilus rutilus and Scardinius erythrophthalmus resulted in their establishment of a numerically dominant population in only 2 years; density estimates exceeded 60 ind. m^?2 and they comprised >99% of fish present. Stable isotope analysis (SIA) revealed significant trophic overlap between P. parva, R. rutilus and C. carpio, a shift associated with significantly depressed somatic growth in R. rutilus. Despite these changes, fish community composition remained similar between the ponds. Comparison with SIA values collected from an adjacent pond free of P. parva revealed a simplified food web in P. parva presence, but with an apparent trophic position shift for several fishes, including S. erythrophthalmus which appeared to assimilate energy at a higher trophic level, probably through P. parva consumption. The marked isotopic shifts shown in all taxa in the P. parva invaded pond (¹³C-enriched, ¹⁵N depleted) were indicative of a shift to a cyanobacteria-dominated phytoplankton community. These findings provide an increased understanding of the ecological consequences of the ongoing P. parva invasion of European freshwater ecosystems.     

Physiological (antioxidant) responses of estuarine fishes to variability in dissolved oxygen

Cycles of dissolved oxygen (DO) in estuaries can range from anoxia to various levels of supersaturation (200–300%) over short time periods. Aerobic metabolism causes formation of damaging reactive oxygen species (ROS), a process exacerbated by high or low DO. Fish can generate physiological defenses (e.g. antioxidant enzymes) against ROS, however, there are little data tying this to environmental conditions. We investigated physiological defenses generated by estuarine fishes in response to high DO and various DO cycles. We hypothesized that chemical defenses and/or oxidative damage are related to patterns of DO supersaturation. Specific activities of antioxidants in fish tissues should be positively correlated with increasing levels of DO, if high DO levels are physiologically stressful. We caged common benthic fishes (longjaw mudsucker, Gillichthysmirabilis, and staghorn sculpin, Leptocottusarmatus, in CA and spot, Leiostomusxanthurus and pinfish, Lagodonrhomboides, in NC) during summer 1998 in two estuarine sites in southern North Carolina and two in central California. At each site a water quality meter measured bottom DO, salinity, temperature, depth, pH and turbidity at 30 min intervals throughout the study. These sites exhibited a wide variety of dissolved oxygen patterns. After 2 weeks in the cages, fish gills and livers were analyzed for antioxidant enzymes (glutathione peroxidase, catalase and superoxide dismutase) and the metabolite glutathione. All fish exhibited antioxidant enzyme activity. There was a significant site-dependent effect on all enzyme activities at the NC sites, with the most activity at the site with the highest DO cycling and the most DO supersaturation. There was a trend towards higher enzyme activities under high DO levels at the CA sites.     

The role of omnivorous crayfish in littoral communities

Large omnivorous predators may play particularly important roles determining the structure of communities because of their broad diets and simultaneous effects on multiple trophic levels. From June 2001 to June 2002 we quantified community structure and ecosystem attributes of six newly establishing freshwater ponds (660 m² each) after populations of omnivorous crayfish (Orconectes virilis) were introduced to three of the ponds. Crayfish preyed heavily on fish eggs in this experiment, which reduced recruitment of young-of-year fish. This effect indirectly enhanced zooplankton biomass in crayfish ponds. Phytoplankton abundance exhibited a more complex pattern and was probably influenced by non-trophic (e.g., bioturbation) effects of crayfish. Peak dissolved oxygen levels were lower in the crayfish ponds indicating that they had lower primary production: respiration ratios. Metaphytic algae were strongly affected by crayfish presence; filamentous greens quickly disappeared and the blue-green Gleotrichia (a less preferred food item) eventually dominated the composition in crayfish ponds. Chara vulgaris and vascular macrophytes established 34% cover in control ponds by June 2002, but were not able to establish in crayfish ponds. Two important periphyton herbivores (tadpoles and gastropods) were absent or significantly reduced in the crayfish ponds, but periphyton differences were temporally variable and not easily explained by a simple trophic cascade (i.e., crayfish—snails and tadpoles—periphyton). Our results indicate that crayfish can have dramatic direct and indirect impacts on littoral pond communities via feeding links with multiple trophic levels (i.e., fish, invertebrates, and plants) and non-trophic activities (bioturbation). Although the effects of omnivorous crayfish on littoral communities can be large, their complex effects do not fit neatly into current theories about trophic interactions or freshwater community structure.     

Crustacean zooplankton community structure in temporary and permanent grassland ponds

Lentic community structure varies across a size gradient of ponds and lakes with physical factors, such as pond drying, and biotic factors, such as fish predation, determining the species assemblage. We studied the effects of pond drying and fish absence on crustacean zooplankton across a gradient of pond sizes in a Texas grassland. We determined the species compositions and size distributions of crustacean zooplankton in 20 temporary and 18 permanent ponds in April after March rains had refilled the ponds. The surface areas of temporary and permanent ponds ranged from <0.01 to 0.21 ha and 0.04 to 13.8 ha, respectively, and temporary ponds were significantly smaller, on average, than permanent ponds. Fish were absent from all temporary ponds and present in all permanent ponds. We detected a difference in the zooplankton species assemblages of the temporary and permanent ponds. Out of 14 total zooplankton taxa that occurred in eight or more ponds, seven taxa were significantly more prevalent in temporary ponds and four taxa were significantly more prevalent in permanent ponds. The sizes of zooplankton in the temporary fishless ponds were greater than those in the permanent ponds with fish present. We concluded that pond size mediated susceptibility to pond drying, and pond drying determined the presence and absence of fish and their secondary trophic-level effect on zooplankton community structure. Handling editor: Steven Declerck