WP 4: Biological responses to environmental gradients within
and between regions
Targets
Lead Contractor
Lead Partners
Targets
Workpackages WP 1, WP 2 and WP 3 are
concerned with the physical and chemical factors (both natural and
anthropogenic) that set the environmental boundaries for life in
mountain lakes. In workpackages WP 4
and WP 5 we focus on biology and aim to
model species distribution and food-web structure in relation to
environmental gradients. Although much biological data are
available for individual sites, information at a regional scale is
uneven within and between Lake Districts. In order to fulfil the
main objective of the project we need comparable information along
the main geographical and environmental gradients within
Europe. Consequently we will undertake a thorough survey of between
10 and 50 lakes in each Lake District to assess the distribution of
key organisms including those that provide a fossil record and
thereby allow changes through time to be inferred. In addition
quantitative sampling of bacterioplankton, phytoplankton and
zooplankton will be carried out during the autumn overturn period
to assess food-web health.
For each lake in the survey we will take samples for epilithic
diatoms, benthic invertebrates, zooplankton, bacterial abundance,
chlorophyll a, and water chemistry (major ions and nutrients, pH and
alkalinity), and we will take short sediment cores. We will analyse
two samples (top and bottom) from the sediment cores for diatoms,
chironomids and pigments. The top sample of the core will be used to
represent present conditions and the bottom sample will be used to
represent reference pre-industrial conditions. We will use
carbonaceous particle fly ash screening to ensure the bottom sample
is of pre-industrial age.
Lead Contractor
-
ECRC-UCL - Environmental
Change Research Centre, University College London, UK
Lead Partners
-
UB-DE - Ecology Department, University of Barcelona, Spain
-
UiB - Department of Zoology, University of Bergen, Norway
-
HBI-ASCR - Hydrobiological
Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Ceske
Budjovice, Czech Republic
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