R. Ptacnik

Mapping planktonic communities: a network approach to assess the role of scale and centrality on their diversity and composition

This study examines how scale and centrality in lake networks affect planktonic community diversity and composition, finding varied responses across different planktonic groups.

Regional and fine-scale local adaptation in salinity tolerance in Daphnia inhabiting contrasting clusters of inland saline waters

The paper examines local adaptation to salinity in Daphnia magna across two saline habitat clusters, finding regional and fine-scale adaptation differences.

Parallels and divergences in landscape genetic and metacommunity patterns in zooplankton inhabiting soda pans

The paper compares spatial and environmental drivers of metacommunity structure and landscape genetic structure in zooplankton across soda pans, finding parallels and divergences in their influences.

Chytrids-conveyed long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids to Daphnia alleviate the detrimental effect of heat when combined with limiting dietary organic matter quantity and nutritional quality

This study shows that chytrid-infected diets increase Daphnia survival, growth, and reproduction under heat stress by enhancing PUFA retention and bioconversion.

Dispersal provides trophic-level dependent insurance against a heatwave in freshwater ecosystems

The paper tests how dispersal from natural lakes affects community resilience to a heatwave in alpine lake plankton, finding that microorganism dispersal enhances recovery while zooplankton dispersal does not.

Top-down structuring of freshwater bacterial communities by mixotrophic and heterotrophic protists

This study examines how mixotrophic and heterotrophic protists structure freshwater bacterial communities through grazing experiments, showing that protist nutritional modes influence bacterial diversity and composition.

Microbial stowaways - waterbirds as dispersal vectors of aquatic pro- and microeukaryotic communities

This study shows waterbirds transport aquatic microbial communities via droppings, with greylag geese dispersing 28% of prokaryotes and 19% of microeukaryotes.

From adverse to beneficial - contrasting dietary effects of freshwater mixotrophs on zooplankton

This study contrasts the dietary effects of freshwater mixotrophs on zooplankton, finding that species-specific toxicity and environmental factors influence survival outcomes.

Disentangling metacommunity processes using multiple metrics in space and time

The paper develops a Virtual ecologist approach to evaluate metacommunity assembly processes using spatial and temporal community structure statistics and random forests.

A process-based metacommunity framework linking local and regional scale community ecology

This paper presents a new metacommunity framework that links local and regional ecological dynamics through three key processes and demonstrates how existing theories are connected by these processes.