The instability of reservoir habitats and its impact on food webs

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The goal of this research is to assess the potential of the unstable physical environment of reservoirs to limit the productivity of their food webs. Reservoirs, although superficially similar to lakes, are engineered systems operated to maximize hydroelectric output or water storage. They tend to be situated in steep-sided basins, have high hydraulic throughput, and experience greater changes in water level than natural lakes. Productivity in natural lakes is driven by three major energy flow pathways, the pelagic, the littoral and the profundal; however in reservoirs the pelagic is generally dominant, and the littoral and the profundal zoobenthic pathways are generally of minor importance due to a combination of draw-down and the deep, steep-sided basins. In addition, water turnover can be sufficiently rapid to limit the development of zooplankton, which are usually absent from the riverine inputs to reservoirs, and lack the swimming ability to resist advective entrainment in the reservoir outflow.