The Trophic Cascade in Lakes
The Trophic Cascade in Lakes
James F. Kitchell, University of Wisconsin, Madison
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.
- Broad perspective of lake trophic ecology
- Unique example of execution, statistical analysis and interpretation of large scale experiments in aquatic ecology
- Multidisciplinary team, with unified approach
Reviews & endorsements
"I found the book to be clearly written, and appropriate for its target audience, researchers in ecology and resource management...The breadth of approaches brought to bear in the study is extremely impressive...I recommend this book as a fine case history of a pluralistic approach to an important ecological issue." Tim Wootton, Ecology
"State-of-the-art theory and methods in a variety of ecological and aquatic disciplines are brought together and integrated. Many ecologists will be intrigued by the statistical approaches applied throughout the book...resource managers will find important and useful lessons about ecosystem management in practice." Brett Johnson, Fisheries Review
"This book is of interest to workers in ecology, aquatic ecology, resource management, and limnology." Environment International
Product details
July 1996Paperback
9780521566841
400 pages
229 × 152 × 21 mm
0.53kg
115 b/w illus. 40 tables
Available
Table of Contents
- 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.
