Biomolecules reveal composition of lake phytoplankton community

Clean and safe lake water is an important part of the finish identity. In recent decades, interest in lake water conditions has increased. Land use and climate change are creating new challenges to maintain water quality. Harmful cyanobacterial blooms are also expected to be more frequently as a result of future utirophies.

A significant amount of both public and private funds is invested in lake restoration measures, but these efforts do not always produce desired results.

Zooplankton plays an important role in the cycling of energy and nutrients

In Doctoral research At Jyväskylä University, Finland, M.Sc. Jaco Litmann used biomolecule-based modeling to study the structure of the phytoplinkton community in Lake Vesizravi, as well as diets of water flea and caleode copopes over a period of seven years.

“The interaction between the phytoplankton community and the zoplankton is important in controlling the cyanobacterial bloom,” says Litmann. “Biomolecules, such as a pigment produced by fatty acids and algae, can be used in combination with mathematical methods, which can be used to model the structure of the phytoplinkon community and the diet of zoplakton.”

The study of the feeding habits of zoplankton can provide new insight into both energy transfer and nutrient bicycle riding.

Litman said, “Water flea often has the most important grazing of algae in lakes, and has been studied extensively.” “Although Calnoid Coppod may be major algal grazing during parts of summer, they have been ignored to a large extent due to the challenges of enrichment in the laboratory. This has left a difference in our understanding that how the zoplankton phytoplankton affects the community.”

New insight into food web mobility

Under the restoration of restoration efforts and environmental changes, phytoplinkon communities are often identified using microscopy, even though primary interest is particularly in cyanobacteria.

Litman said, “The slow and expensive microscopic identity of algae can be replaced by fatty acids and pigment analysis when the species-level identification is not necessary,” Litman said.

In the Vesijravi Lake, water fleas usually consume the available phytoplinkon community without strong selectiveness, while calonoids are highly selective in their choice of algal groups.

“In my dissertation, I found that Calnoid Coppods could reduce the abundance of high quality algae, which could create an opportunity for low quality algae, such as cyanobacteria,” Litman said. “However, Calonoid Coppods also provide high quality food for fish, which reduce the widespread impact of low quality algae within the food web.”

The regular monitoring of the phytoplinkon communities offers only one side of the story. The other side is phytoplinkon which is grazed by zoplancon.

“In the future, when studying climate change effects, more attention should be paid to the entire food web rather than focusing on individual species, planning and focusing on individual species when monitoring their effects,” emphasizes Litman.