The Trophic Cascade in Lakes

This 1993 book documents the importance of trophic cascades in aquatic ecology.

Stephen R. Carpenter (Edited by), James F. Kitchell (Edited by)

9780521431453, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 August 1993

400 pages, 115 b/w illus. 40 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.7 kg

"This book is of interest to workers in ecology, aquatic ecology, resource management, and limnology." Environment International

Fluctuations in fish populations in lakes can cascade through food webs to alter nutrient cycling, algal biomass and primary production. Trophic cascades may interact with nutrients and physical factors to explain most of the variance in lake ecosystem process rates. In this 1993 book, a multidisciplinary research team tests this idea by manipulating whole lakes experimentally, and coordinating this with palaeolimnological studies, simulation modelling, and small-scale enclosure experiments. Consequences of predator-prey interactions, behavioural responses of fishes, diel vertical migration of zooplankton, plankton community change, primary production, nutrient cycling and microbial processes are described. Palaeolimnological techniques enable the reconstruction of trophic interactions from past decades. Prospects for analysing the interaction of food web structure and nutrient input in lakes are explored.

1. Cascading trophic interactions
2. Experimental lakes, manipulations and measurements
3. Statistical analysis of the ecosystem experiments
4. The fish populations
5. Fish behavioral and community responses to manipulation
6. Roles of fish predation: piscivory and planktivory
7. Dynamics of the phantom midge: implications for zooplankton
8. Zooplankton community dynamics
9. Effects of predators and food supply and diel vertical migration of Daphnia
10. Zooplankton biomass and body size
11. Phytoplankton community dynamics
12. Metalimnetic phytoplankton
13. Primary production and its interactions with nutrients and light transmission
14. Heterotrophic microbial processes
15. Annual fossil record of food-web manipulation
16. Simulation models of the trophic cascade: predictions and evaluations
17. Synthesis and new directions
Index.

Subject Areas: Freshwater biology [PSPF], Ecological science, the Biosphere [PSAF]