Project ID:2006ND136B
Title:: Top-down and Bottom-up Effects on the Abundance of Periphyton in Shallow Lakes
Project Type: Research
Start Date: 11/01/2006
End Date: 02/28/2007
Congressional District: 1
Focus Categories: Surface Water, Water Quality, Nutrients
Keywords: shallow lake ecosystem, periphyton biomass, nutrients, fish invertebrate, turbidity
Principal Investigator: Butler, Malcolm George (North Dakota State University)
Federal Funds: $ 2,000
Non-Federal Matching Funds: $ 4,000
Abstract: Much evidence points to nutrients as a cause of high periphyton biomass, just as nutrient loading enhances planktonic algae. Fish presence in a shallow basin may also favor increased algae, both planktonic and periphytic. Periphyton is detrimental to macrophytes, and ultimately may contribute to a basin shifting from the clear-water state to the less valuable turbid state. We need to better understand what controls periphyton, and the role it may play in shifts from the clear-water state to the turbid-water state in shallow lakes within the PPR. This study is designed to sample the abundance and composition of species involved in the fish-invertebrate-periphyton-macrophyte trophic cascade, along with other variables (nutrients, turbidity, and phytoplankton) to identify factors influencing periphyton biomass in shallow prairie lakes. This study will provide better understanding of interactions contolling to periphyton within shallow lake ecosystems.
Progress/Completion Report, PDF