| 1. |
- Downing, Andrea S., et al.
(författare)
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Coupled human and natural system dynamics as key to the sustainability of Lake Victoria's ecosystem services
- 2014
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 19:4, s. 31-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- East Africa's Lake Victoria provides resources and services to millions of people on the lake's shores and abroad. In particular, the lake's fisheries are an important source of protein, employment, and international economic connections for the whole region. Nonetheless, stock dynamics are poorly understood and currently unpredictable. Furthermore, fishery dynamics are intricately connected to other supporting services of the lake as well as to lakeshore societies and economies. Much research has been carried out piecemeal on different aspects of Lake Victoria's system; e.g., societies, biodiversity, fisheries, and eutrophication. However, to disentangle drivers and dynamics of change in this complex system, we need to put these pieces together and analyze the system as a whole. We did so by first building a qualitative model of the lake's social-ecological system. We then investigated the model system through a qualitative loop analysis, and finally examined effects of changes on the system state and structure. The model and its contextual analysis allowed us to investigate system-wide chain reactions resulting from disturbances. Importantly, we built a tool that can be used to analyze the cascading effects of management options and establish the requirements for their success. We found that high connectedness of the system at the exploitation level, through fisheries having multiple target stocks, can increase the stocks' vulnerability to exploitation but reduce society's vulnerability to variability in individual stocks. We describe how there are multiple pathways to any change in the system, which makes it difficult to identify the root cause of changes but also broadens the management toolkit. Also, we illustrate how nutrient enrichment is not a self-regulating process, and that explicit management is necessary to halt or reverse eutrophication. This model is simple and usable to assess system-wide effects of management policies, and can serve as a paving stone for future quantitative analyses of system dynamics at local scales.
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| 2. |
- Bakker, Elisabeth S., et al.
(författare)
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Restoring macrophyte diversity in shallow temperate lakes : biotic versus abiotic constraints
- 2013
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Ingår i: Hydrobiologia. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0018-8158 .- 1573-5117. ; 710:1, s. 23-37
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although many lake restoration projects have led to decreased nutrient loads and increased water transparency, the establishment or expansion of macrophytes does not immediately follow the improved abiotic conditions and it is often unclear whether vegetation with high macrophyte diversity will return. We provide an overview of the potential bottlenecks for restoration of submerged macrophyte vegetation with a high biodiversity and focus on the biotic factors, including the availability of propagules, herbivory, plant competition and the role of remnant populations. We found that the potential for restoration in many lakes is large when clear water conditions are met, even though the macrophyte community composition of the early 1900s, the start of human-induced large-scale eutrophication in Northwestern Europe, could not be restored. However, emerging charophytes and species rich vegetation are often lost due to competition with eutrophic species. Disturbances such as herbivory can limit dominance by eutrophic species and improve macrophyte diversity. We conclude that it is imperative to study the role of propagule availability more closely as well as the biotic interactions including herbivory and plant competition. After abiotic conditions are met, these will further determine macrophyte diversity and define what exactly can be restored and what not.
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| 3. |
- Bernes, Claes, et al.
(författare)
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What is the influence on water quality in temperate eutrophic lakes of a reduction of planktivorous and benthivorous fish? : A systematic review protocol
- 2013
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Ingår i: Environmental Evidence. - : BioMed Central (BMC). - 2047-2382. ; 2:1
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: In lakes that have become eutrophic due to sewage discharges or nutrient runoff from land, problems such as algal blooms and oxygen deficiency often persist even when nutrient supplies have been reduced. One reason is that phosphorus stored in the sediments can exchange with the water. There are indications that the high abundance of phytoplankton, turbid water and lack of submerged vegetation seen in many eutrophic lakes may represent a semi-stable state. For that reason, a shift back to more natural clear-water conditions could be difficult to achieve. In some cases, though, temporary mitigation of eutrophication-related problems has been accomplished through biomanipulation: stocks of zooplanktivorous fish have been reduced by intensive fishing, leading to increased populations of phytoplankton-feeding zooplankton. Moreover, reduction of benthivorous fish may result in lower phosphorus fluxes from the sediments. An alternative to reducing the dominance of planktivores and benthivores by fishing is to stock lakes with piscivorous fish. These two approaches have often been used in combination. The implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive has recently led to more stringent demands for measures against eutrophication, and a systematic review could clarify whether biomanipulation is efficient as a measure of that kind. Methods: The review will examine primary field studies of how large-scale biomanipulation has affected water quality and community structure in eutrophic lakes or reservoirs in temperate regions. Such studies can be based on comparison between conditions before and after manipulation, on comparison between treated and nontreated water bodies, or both. Relevant outcomes include Secchi depth, concentrations of oxygen, nutrients, suspended solids and chlorophyll, abundance and composition of phytoplankton, zooplankton and fish, and coverage of submerged macrophytes.
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| 4. |
- Blanco, Saul, et al.
(författare)
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Epiphytic Diatoms along Environmental Gradients in Western European Shallow Lakes
- 2014
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Ingår i: Clean - Soil, Air, Water. - : Wiley. - 1863-0650. ; 42:3, s. 229-235
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Diatom-based assays have been successfully associated worldwide with the tropic status of lakes. Several studies have demonstrated a correlation between epiphytic diatoms and nutrient load in shallow lakes and wetlands. We examine the relative importance of environmental factors in explaining the structure of epiphytic diatom communities in a set of Western European shallow lakes. The effects of lake physical/chemical, morphometric, and geographical variables on diatom assemblages were tested using distance-based, canonical correspondence and regression analyses. Our results show that epiphytic diatom communities respond, mainly to physical/chemical variables, overriding the effects of lake depth, size, and location. The clustering of studied systems based along a total phosphorus concentration gradient concurs with previous classification of diatom taxa and nutrient state. Assessment of epiphytic diatoms provided a potential method for shallow lake classification.
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| 5. |
- Domis, Lisette N. De Senerpont, et al.
(författare)
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Plankton dynamics under different climatic conditions in space and time
- 2013
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Ingår i: Freshwater Biology. - : Wiley. - 0046-5070 .- 1365-2427. ; 58:3, s. 463-482
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- 1.Different components of the climate system have been shown to affect temporal dynamics in natural plankton communities on scales varying from days to years. The seasonal dynamics in temperate lake plankton communities, with emphasis on both physical and biological forcing factors, were captured in the 1980s in a conceptual framework, the Plankton Ecology Group (PEG) model. 2.Taking the PEG model as our starting point, we discuss anticipated changes in seasonal and long-term plankton dynamics and extend this model to other climate regions, particularly polar and tropical latitudes. Based on our improved post-PEG understanding of plankton dynamics, we also evaluate the role of microbial plankton, parasites and fish in governing plankton dynamics and distribution. 3.In polar lakes, there is usually just a single peak in plankton biomass in summer. Lengthening of the growing season under warmer conditions may lead to higher and more prolonged phytoplankton productivity. Climate-induced increases in nutrient loading in these oligotrophic waters may contribute to higher phytoplankton biomass and subsequent higher zooplankton and fish productivity. 4.In temperate lakes, a seasonal pattern with two plankton biomass peaks in spring and summer can shift to one with a single but longer and larger biomass peak as nutrient loading increases, with associated higher populations of zooplanktivorous fish. Climate change will exacerbate these trends by increasing nutrient loading through increased internal nutrient inputs (due to warming) and increased catchment inputs (in the case of more precipitation). 5.In tropical systems, temporal variability in precipitation can be an important driver of the seasonal development of plankton. Increases in precipitation intensity may reset the seasonal dynamics of plankton communities and favour species adapted to highly variable environments. The existing intense predation by fish on larger zooplankters may increase further, resulting in a perennially low zooplankton biomass. 6.Bacteria were not included in the original PEG model. Seasonally, bacteria vary less than the phytoplankton but often follow its patterns, particularly in colder lakes. In warmer lakes, and with future warming, a greater influx of allochthonous carbon may obscure this pattern. 7.Our analyses indicate that the consequences of climate change for plankton dynamics are, to a large extent, system specific, depending on characteristics such as food-web structure and nutrient loading. Indirect effects through nutrient loading may be more important than direct effects of temperature increase, especially for phytoplankton. However, with warming a general picture emerges of increases in bacterivory, greater cyanobacterial dominance and smaller-bodied zooplankton that are more heavily impacted by fish predation.
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| 6. |
- Kosten, Sarian, et al.
(författare)
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Warmer climates boost cyanobacterial dominance in shallow lakes
- 2012
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013. ; 18:1, s. 118-126
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Dominance by cyanobacteria hampers human use of lakes and reservoirs worldwide. Previous studies indicate that excessive nutrient loading and warmer conditions promote dominance by cyanobacteria, but evidence from global scale field data has so far been scarce. Our analysis, based on a study of 143 lakes along a latitudinal transect ranging from subarctic Europe to southern South America, shows that although warmer climates do not result in higher overall phytoplankton biomass, the percentage of the total phytoplankton biovolume attributable to cyanobacteria increases steeply with temperature. Our results also reveal that the percent cyanobacteria is greater in lakes with high rates of light absorption. This points to a positive feedback because restriction of light availability is often a consequence of high phytoplankton biovolume, which in turn may be driven by nutrient loading. Our results indicate a synergistic effect of nutrients and climate. The implications are that in a future warmer climate, nutrient concentrations may have to be reduced substantially from present values in many lakes if cyanobacterial dominance is to be controlled.
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| 7. |
- Sommer, Ulrich, et al.
(författare)
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Beyond the Plankton Ecology Group (PEG) Model : Mechanisms Driving Plankton Succession
- 2012
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Ingår i: Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics. - : Annual Reviews. - 1543-592X .- 1545-2069. ; 43, s. 429-448
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- The seasonal succession of plankton is an annually repeated process of community assembly during which all major external factors and internal interactions shaping communities can be studied. A quarter of a century ago, the state of this understanding was described by the verbal plankton ecology group (PEG) model. It emphasized the role of physical factors, grazing and nutrient limitation for phytoplankton, and the role of food limitation and fish predation for zooplankton. Although originally targeted at lake ecosystems, it was also adopted by marine plankton ecologists. Since then, a suite of ecological interactions previously underestimated in importance have become research foci: overwintering of key organisms, the microbial food web, parasitism, and food quality as a limiting factor and an extended role of higher order predators. A review of the impact of these novel interactions on plankton seasonal succession reveals limited effects on gross seasonal biomass patterns, but strong effects on species replacements.
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| 8. |
- Weissbach, Astrid
(författare)
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The role of allelopathy in microbial food webs
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Phytoplankton produce allelochemicals; excreted chemical substances that are affecting other microorganisms in their direct environment.In my thesis, I investigated strain specific variability in the expression of allelochemicals of the harmful flagellate Prymnesium parvum, that is euryhaline but mainly bloom forming in brackish water. I found a large variation among strains, but further showed that all strains of P. parvum were more allelopathic in brackish water compared to marine water.In a marine microbial community, allelochemicals can affect prey, competitors and grazers both, directly and indirectly. For instance, in a food web where grazing controls prey abundance, the negative direct effect of allelochemicals on grazers will positive affect their prey. During my thesis, I investigated how marine microbial communities respond to the addition of allelochemicals. I performed field experiments with microbial communities from seawater collected from different places over Europe, and tested how this communities respond to the addition of allelochemicals from the dinoflagellate Alexandrium tamarense. Before I incubated the microbial communities for several days with A. tamarense algal filtrate, I evaluated the allelopathic efficiency of the algal filtrates with an algal monoculture of Rhodomonas spp. This allowed me to compare the effect of A. tamarense filtrate between the different microbial communities.In general, bacteria reached higher abundances when allelochemicals were present. As allelochemicals also inhibited nanoflagellates and ciliates, we concluded, that allelochemicals indirectly benefit bacteria by reducing grazing pressure. In microbial food webs with many heterotrophic grazers, allelochemicals further benefitted other phytoplankton by inhibiting grazers.It was also shown that bioavailable DOM is released from a microbial community when allelochemicals are present. As most DOM was released from the seawater fraction > 60 μm, we concluded, that larger microorganisms are more affected by allelochemicals than smaller microorganisms. The results can be explained by the surface to volume ratio of microorganisms: Larger organisms provide more contact surface for allelochemicals, and therefore, are probably more vulnerable towards allelochemicals.In conclusion, the effect of allelochemicals on a microbial community depends among others on the structure of the microbial food web, the amount of available DOM, the particle density in the seawater and the composition of the phytoplankton community.
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