Dissertation Research: Alternate States of Metalimnetic Systems Resulting from Cascading Trophic Interactions

这项研究将评估metalimnetic的能力， 浮游植物，以减轻对综合水体的影响 第一生产力的变化在鱼类。 据推测 食草性增加会导致放牧减少， 增加的表层叶绿素，降低的透明度，和 消除metalimnetic藻类，从而转移的轨迹， 总初级生产力变化不大， 生产 这一机制可能会大大改变 湖泊中的级联营养相互作用， 叶绿素最大值 我们将用一个整体来检验这个假设- 湖食鱼添加实验。 实验和 控制湖泊目前支持密集的元湖藻类 人口。 生物量预算来自这次抽样， 来自另一个项目的预算将用于 分析变化的定性和定量影响， 浅湖藻和浅湖藻的摄食 人口，以及这些变化对人口总数的影响 初级生产力。

This study will evaluate the ability of metalimnetic phytoplankton to mitigate the effects on intergrated water column primary productivity of changes in piscivory. It is hypothesized that increased planktivory will lead to reduced grazing, increased epilimnetic chlorophyll, reduced transparency, and elimination of metalimnetic algae, thereby shifting the locus of production to the epilimnion with little change in total primary production. This mechanism could substantially alter the effects of cascading trophic interactions in lakes which support deep chlorophyll maxima. The hypothesis will be tested with a whole- lake planktivore addition experiment. Both experimental and control lakes presently support dense metalimnetic algal populations. Biomass budgets derived from this sampling and epilimnetic budgets derived from another project will be used to analyze the qualitative and quantitative effects of changes in planktivory within metalimnetic and epilimnetic algal populations, and the implications of those changes to total primary productivity.