The role of storms in the summer succession of the phytoplankton community in a shallow lake (Lake Balaton, Hungary)

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Abstract
The authors carried out day-to-day studies on the phytoplankton of the largest shallow lake of Central Europe in the summer of 1976, 1977 and 1978. Data were analysed with diversity and cluster analyses. (i) Wind-induced stirring-up of the sediment plays important role in the summer phytoplankton succession of the shallow lake. (ii) After storms algae with very small cell sizes show synchronous development. In long calm periods algae with larger cell sizes exhibit organised population dynamics. (iii) In calm periods a shift from r-selection to predominant K-selection can be suspected. After the next storm importance of r-selectionists again increases. (iv) Effect of changing growth- and loss rates on the population dynamics of the most abundant species is discussed based on measured generation times and calculated elimination. The phenomena discussed in the paper can appear to different extents in the summer phytoplankton succession of other shallow, polimictic lakes.

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