Abstract
Collections of algae, mainly planktonic, were made from 41 saline lakes in southern Saskatchewan ranging in salinity from 3.2 to 428 g l-1. Algae in 7 phyla, 8 classes, 42 families, 91 genera and 212 species and varieties were identified. Fourteen species were restricted to hypersaline (50 g l-1) waters and eleven of these were diatoms. In general, species diversity was inversely related to lake salinity.
Algae that were important community constituents over a broad spectrum of salinities were the green algae Ctenocladus circinnatus, Dunaliella salina and Rhizoclonium hieroglyphicum, the blue-green Lyngbya Birgei, Microcystis aeruginosa, Oscillatoria tenuis, O. Utermoehli and Nodularia spumigena and the diatoms Melosira granulata, Stephanodiscus niagarae and Chaetoceros Elmorei. In general green algae were dominant when lake salinity exceeded 100 g l-1 although diatoms played important roles in most of these highly saline lakes except for Patience Lake.
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Hammer, U.T., Shamess, J. & Haynes, R.C. The distribution and abundance of algae in saline lakes of Saskatchewan, Canada. Hydrobiologia 105, 1–26 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00025173
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00025173