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Which environmental factors trigger the dominance of phytoplankton species across a moisture gradient of shallow lakes?

  • ARGENTINE PAMPEAN SHALLOW LAKES
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An Erratum to this article was published on 23 August 2016

Abstract

We investigated nine Pampean shallow lakes (Argentina) across a moisture gradient (mean annual precipitation 1,000–500 mm), under the framework of a network project of lake monitoring whose main objective was to analyse the responses of ecosystems to different stressors associated with human activities. We postulate that species bloom in different shallow lakes will be determined mainly by local optical features, nutrients and salinity. We analysed the phytoplankton structure during the warm season 2012–2013, identifying those species and functional groups that proliferate in the lakes. Most lakes showed high phytoplankton biomass, except a saline lake located in the driest part of the gradient and an inorganic turbid lake. In some lakes, cyanobacteria blooms occurred in summer, persisting until autumn. Small colonial cyanobacteria and small fast-growing chlorophytes were abundant in most turbid enriched and anthropogenically impacted systems. Lowest species and functional diversity occurred in the saline lake. Multivariate analysis indicated that the phytoplankton structure was mainly defined by conductivity, transparency and variables associated with the trophic state, also reflecting the importance of the geographical location. Our results evidenced the vulnerability of most shallow lakes in the region to water level fluctuations, eutrophication and canalization.

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Acknowledgments

This investigation was financed by the network project PAMPA2 (CONICET). We thank the team of the following laboratories: Limnology at the University of Buenos Aires, Photobiology at the IIB-INTECH of Chascomús, and Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía, IADO, Bahía Blanca for the cooperation in the field campaigns at the different sampling sites. We also thank R. Escaray and J. Bustingorry for some of the nutrient analyses. We thank the two reviewers for their comments that improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Irina Izaguirre, María Laura Sánchez, M. Romina Schiaffino & Inés O’Farrell

  2. Instituto de Investigaciones Biotecnológicas, Instituto Tecnológico de Chascomús (IIB-INTECH), CONICET, Chasmomús, Argentina

    Paula Huber & Leonardo Lagomarsino

  3. Departamento de Biología, Bioquímica y Farmacia, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Bahía Blanca, Argentina

    Nora Ferrer & Josefina Zunino

  4. Ecología y Acuicultura, Facultad de Agronomía y Veterinaria, Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto, Río Cuarto, Córdoba, Argentina

    Miguel Mancini

Authors
  1. Irina Izaguirre
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  2. María Laura Sánchez
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  3. M. Romina Schiaffino
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  4. Inés O’Farrell
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  5. Paula Huber
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  6. Nora Ferrer
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  7. Josefina Zunino
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  8. Leonardo Lagomarsino
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  9. Miguel Mancini
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Irina Izaguirre.

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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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Izaguirre, I., Sánchez, M.L., Schiaffino, M.R. et al. Which environmental factors trigger the dominance of phytoplankton species across a moisture gradient of shallow lakes?. Hydrobiologia 752, 47–64 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-014-2007-1

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