The Influence of Different Dietary Categories on Life-History of Daphnia pulex

The type and amount of food that Cladocera species eat is known to affect their growth, development, capacity for reproduction, and ultimately the size of their populations. This study examines the influence of different diet types and mixtures on the Daphnia pulex (Leydig, 1860) life-history characteristics such as development, growth, and reproduction in a lab setting. D. pulex was fed with a yeast diet (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), a fresh green algal diet (Scenedesmus acutus), an aquarium fish feed diet (Arthrospira platensis), and a mixture diet (yeast, algae and fish feed) in a controlled static experiment for 21 days in the study. When D. pulex was fed with only one type of food, body weight, body size, somatic, and population growth rates decreased compared to the mixed diet but continued to increase compared to the control group throughout the 21-day experimental duration (P≤0.05). In contrast, according to morphometric measurements, the effect of a diet containing only cyanobacteria caused a stagnation in growth rates, while growth rates increased in those fed with cyanobacteria-containing feeds added to the mixed diet (P≤0.05). Our results show that the type of food and its mixtures significantly affect the vital characteristics of the D. pulex population.