Seasonal Variation of Potential Nutrient Limitation to Chlorophyll Production in Southern Lake Huron
- 1 January 1981
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Canadian Science Publishing in Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
- Vol. 38 (1) , 1-9
- https://doi.org/10.1139/f81-001
Abstract
Potential nutrient limitation to chlorophyll production in surface waters of southern Lake Huron was assayed monthly from April-Dec. 1975. Natural phytoplankton assemblage responses to nutrient enrichment were determined from chlorophyll production in laboratory incubations under seasonally varied light and temperature conditions. Experimental treatments included a complete treatment containing P, N, Si, EDTA, vitamins and trace metals; treatments with deletions from the complete treatment; complete treatments with different P concentrations; and treatments with single nutrient additions. Effects were most pronounced during summer and fall when P, EDTA, FeEDTA, vitamins, and SI were added simultaneously. The intensity of the effect resulting from additions of P and other nutrients varied seasonally. Individual additions of EDTA, N and Si had little effect as did deletion of N from the complete treatment. Addition of P alone resulted in limited growth. Deletion of P from the complete enrichment reduced growth drastically during most experimental periods. In the complete treatment, the minimum levels of P that caused significant chlorophyll production ranged from 1-3 .mu.g l-1. Chelate (EDTA), chelated iron and vitamins were important secondary limiting nutrients during the summer months. There was a small effect due to Si in July, Sept. and Oct., and no indication of deficiency in trace metals. Trace metals, when deleted, frequently produced greater chlorophyll than the complete treatment, but growth was sharply reduced by deletion of trace metals and EDTA combined. Large increases in chlorophyll production in southern Lake Huron require simultaneous additions of the primary limiting nutrient (P) and secondary limiting nutrients (EDTA, FeEDTA and vitamins) which vary seasonally.This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit:
- Population responses of Lake Michigan phytoplankton to nitrogen and phosphorus enrichmentHydrobiologia, 1978
- A morphometric method for correcting phytoplankton cell volume estimatesProtoplasma, 1977
- Bioassay of lower Narragansett Bay waters during the 1972‐1973 winter‐spring bloom using the diatom Skeletonema costatum1Limnology and Oceanography, 1977