Hydroperiod is considered an important aspect in shaping community structure and ecosystem patterns in temporary wetlands. However, most studies have focused on the community structure, demonstrating that biotic diversity increases with hydroperiod. Theory suggests that ecosystem patterns like trophic interactions and food web structure will also respond to hydroperiod in the same way. However, there are limited studies exploring ecosystem structure and patterns to changing hydroperiod in temporary wetlands. Maloti-Drakensberg Mountain region of southern Africa has a series of rock pools (shorter hydroperiod) and tarns (longer hydroperiod) that allowed us to explore the effect of hydroperiod on aquatic biodiversity and trophic interactions using stable isotope techniques. We hypothesised that tarns will have higher biotic diversity and complex food web structure as compared to rock pools, which we expected to exhibit low biotic diversity and simple food web structure. Our results were in agreement with our hypothesis, where tarns were characterised by longer food chain length, higher trophic level diversity, greater trophic divergence and even species distribution in the isotopic space. Thus, demonstrating a well-developed and complex food web structure. In contrary, rock pools were characterised by shorter food chain length, small trophic diversity with trophic redundancies and species clustering. Thus, representing a simple and a poorly developed food web structure. Further, macroinvertebrate biotic diversity was significantly higher in longer hydroperiods, also longer hydroperiod exhibited less dramatic changes in the physicochemistry characteristics, representing a more stable environment than shorter hydroperiods. This study demonstrates that hydroperiod not only affects aquatic biological diversity but ecosystem structure, as well.

水周期被认为是塑造临时湿地群落结构和生态系统模式的重要方面。但是，大多数研究都集中在群落结构上，证明了生物多样性随着水周期的增加而增加。理论表明，诸如营养相互作用和食物网结构之类的生态系统模式也将以相同的方式响应水周期。然而，很少有研究探索生态系统的结构和模式以改变临时湿地的水文周期。南部非洲的Maloti-Drakensberg山区拥有一系列的岩石池（较短的水文期）和tarns（较长的水文期），使我们能够使用稳定的同位素技术探索水文期对水生生物多样性和营养相互作用的影响。我们假设，与岩石水池相比，塔恩鱼将具有更高的生物多样性和复杂的食物网结构，而我们期望它们具有较低的生物多样性和简单的食物网结构。我们的结果与我们的假设相符，即where的特征是更长的食物链长度，更高的营养水平多样性，更大的营养分歧以及同位素空间中的物种分布。因此，证明了发达的和复杂的食物网结构。相反，岩池的特征是食物链长度较短，营养多样性小，营养冗余和物种聚集。因此，代表了一种简单且发展较差的食物网结构。此外，在较长的水生周期中，大型无脊椎动物的生物多样性显着较高，同样，更长的水周期在物理化学特征上表现出较少的戏剧性变化，比短的水周期代表了更稳定的环境。这项研究表明，水周期不仅影响水生生物多样性，而且还影响生态系统的结构。