Patterns and Limitations in Limnoplankton Size Spectra

Author:

Ahrens Martin A.,Peters Robert H.

Abstract

The hypothesis that biomass is uniformly distributed over logarithmic size classes was evaluated with plankton samples from 15 temperate lake sites in southern Quebec. Over the size range from 0.2 to 1600 μm equivalent spherical diameter (ESD), biomass tended to increase between logarithmic size classes at a median rate of 7%, and numerical abundance declined strongly with increasing size. The slope of the normalized biomass spectrum (reflecting overall trends in the distribution) becomes significantly steeper as total phosphorus decreases and total biomass declines. Hence, more oligotrophic systems have a more uniform biomass distribution and proportionately more small organisms. Over the observed size range, most samples were dominated by a phytoplankton mode between 20 and 50 μm ESD. Because of this dominance and because of the variability of the samples, most sample distributions could not be shown to differ significantly from unimodal lognormal distributions. Efforts to fit bimodal and trimodal distributions met with limited success, likely because only 39 size classes could be used. Simple mathematical descriptors of size spectra are insensitive to substantial departures from both linear and lognormal models, and therefore, variaion in the parameters of such descriptions are ineffective correlates of departures from average patterns.

Publisher

Canadian Science Publishing

Subject

Aquatic Science,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3