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Long-term study of bloom-forming cyanobacteria in a highly fluctuating vegetated floodplain lake: a morpho-functional approach

  • ARGENTINE PAMPEAN SHALLOW LAKES
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Abstract

This study portrays the frequency and intensity of bloom-forming cyanobacteria in relation to highly changing environmental conditions in a floodplain lake from the Chaco-Pampean region and identifies the factors promoting the growth of different species along a 15-year period marked by important drought and flood periods. Phytoplankton in Laguna Grande was increasingly dominated by cyanobacteria represented by eight bloom-forming species bearing different eco-physiological traits. The bloom development showed strong inter-annual variability in correspondence with the depth of the lake that was affected by local rainfall and the ENSO regional phenomenon. The water level of the lake strongly influenced the species composition, favoring non-heterocystous filaments in deep turbid waters and nitrogen fixing in very short well lit, nitrogen-depleted water columns. Species morphology, dimensions and occurrence of akinetes in the filaments also varied in relation to water level. We suggest that the akinete pool of the sediments played a key role on the occurrence of recurrent Anabaenopsis cf. elenkinii and Sphaerospermopsis cf. aphanizonemoides blooms.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the staff of the Reserva Otamendi (Parques Nacionales de Argentina) for their assistance in the field work, Servicio Meteorológico Nacional and INTA Delta for providing the meteorological data, and Subsecretaría de Puertos y Vías Navegables for the hydrological data. This study has been supported by grants from CONICET (PIP 167, 5355 and PAMPA2), UBA (UBACYT X195) and ANCyPT (PICT 4502, 536, 12332).

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  1. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires – IEGEBA (CONICET-UBA), 1428, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Inés O’Farrell, Alicia Vinocur & Paula de Tezanos Pinto

  2. Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1428, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Alicia Vinocur

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  1. Inés O’Farrell
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Correspondence to Inés O’Farrell.

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Guest editors: I. Izaguirre, L. A. Miranda, G. M. E. Perillo, M. C. Piccolo & H. E. Zagarese / Shallow Lakes from the Central Plains of Argentina

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O’Farrell, I., Vinocur, A. & de Tezanos Pinto, P. Long-term study of bloom-forming cyanobacteria in a highly fluctuating vegetated floodplain lake: a morpho-functional approach. Hydrobiologia 752, 91–102 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-014-1962-x

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