Environmental Sciences Research Institute

The role of littoral zooplankton in lakes

Brian Rippey and Catherine McGavigan

It is known that the diversity of zooplankton in the littoral zone of lakes is higher than in the pelagic, although it is the pelagic zooplankton that are important in the lake food web and to the application of this knowledge to lake management through the technique of biomanipulation. As a result, the aim of this project is to quantify the contribution of littoral zooplankton to whole lake zooplankton diversity, species abundance and productivity and then to evaluate the influence which habitat exerts on these zooplankton communities. The pelagic and littoral zones of one lake, Enagh Lough East, were sampled intensively every two weeks from spring to autumn and the littoral zone was stratified by littoral habitat, mainly according to the aquatic macrophyte species. Supporting physicochemical measurements were also made. This work generated an enormous number of samples to be identified and counted! An abridged sampling regime was then applied to two other lakes in order to be able to evaluate how widely the findings from Enagh Lough apply.