Ecology of Freshwaters - Earth's Bloodstream, Fifth Edition

Preface: why? xiii 1 The world as it was and the world as it is 1 1.1 Early ecological history 1 1.2 The more recent past 5 1.3 Characteristics of freshwater organisms 7 1.4 Freshwater biodiversity 8 1.5 A spanner in the works? 11 1.6 Politics and pollution 14 1.7 On the nature of textbooks 15 1.8 Further reading 17 2 Early evolution and diversity of freshwater organisms 18 2.1 Introduction 18 2.2 The freshwater biota 19 2.3 Bacteria 20 2.4 The variety of bacteria 22 2.5 Viruses 24 2.6 Two sorts of cells 25 2.7 The diversity of microbial eukaryotes 27 2.8 Algae 28 2.9 Kingdoms of eukaryotes 30 2.10 Further reading 37 3 Diversity continued: multicellular organisms in freshwaters 38 3.1 Introduction 38 3.2 Osmoregulation 38 3.3 Reproduction, resting stages and aestivation 39 3.4 Getting enough oxygen 41 3.5 Insects 41 3.6 Big animals, air-breathers and swamps 42 3.7 Dispersal among freshwaters 44 3.8 Patterns in freshwater diversity 46 3.9 Fish faunas 49 3.10 The fish of Lake Victoria 51 3.11 Overall diversity in freshwaters 53 3.12 Environmental DNA 56 3.13 Further reading 57 4 Water: a remarkable unremarkable substance 58 4.1 Introduction 58 4.2 The molecular properties of water and their physical consequences 59 4.3 Melting and evaporation 60 4.4 How much water is there and where is it? 61 4.5 Patterns in hydrology 62 4.6 Bodies of water and their temperatures 66 4.7 An overview of mixing patterns 70 4.8 Viscosity of water and fluid dynamics 71 4.9 Diffusion 73 4.10 Further reading 73 5 Water as a habitat: some background water chemistry 74 5.1 Introduction 74 5.2 Polar and covalent compounds 74 5.3 The atmosphere 75 5.4 Carbon dioxide 76 5.5 Major ions 77 5.6 The big picture 81 5.7 Further reading 83 6 Key nutrients, trace elements and organic matter 84 6.1 Introduction 84 6.2 Concepts of limiting substances 85 6.3 Experiments on nutrient limitation 86 6.4 Nutrient supply and need 91 6.5 Phosphorus 91 6.6 Nitrogen 92 6.7 Pristine concentrations 93 6.8 Trace elements and silicon 96 6.9 Organic substances 98 6.10 Substance budgets and movements 101 6.11 Sediment-water relationships 104 6.12 Further reading 106 7 Light thrown upon the waters 108 7.1 Light 108 7.2 Effects of the atmosphere 109 7.3 From above to under the water 110 7.4 Remote sensing 114 7.5 Further reading 116 8 Headwater streams and rivers 118 8.1 Introduction 118 8.2 General models of stream ecosystems 118 8.3 The basics of stream flow 121 8.4 Flow and discharge 122 8.5 Laminar and turbulent flow 122 8.6 Particles carried 124 8.7 The response of stream organisms to shear stress 125 8.8 Community composition in streams 126 8.9 Algal and plant communities 127 8.10 Macroinvertebrates 128 8.11 Streams in different climates: the polar and alpine zones 132 8.12 Invertebrates of kryal streams 134 8.13 Food webs in cold streams 135 8.14 Stream systems in the cold-temperate zone 137 8.15 Allochthonous sources of energy 139 8.16 Stream orders 140 8.17 The river continuum concept 141 8.18 Indirectly, wolves are stream animals too 142 8.19 Scarcity of nutrients 143 8.20 Warm-temperate streams 144 8.21 Desert streams 147 8.22 Tropical streams 148 8.23 Further reading 152 9 Uses, misuses and restoration of headwater streams and rivers 154 9.1 Traditional use of headwater river systems 154 9.2 Deforestation 156 9.3 Acidification 157 9.4 Eutrophication 162 9.5 Commercial afforestation 163 9.6 Settlement 164 9.7 Engineering impacts 166 9.8 Alterations of the fish community and introduced species 168 9.9 Sewage and toxic pollution and their treatment 170 9.10 Diffuse pollution 174 9.11 River monitoring 176 9.12 The Water Framework Directive 177 9.13 Implementation of the Directive 178 9.14 Restoration and rehabilitation ecology 180 9.15 Further reading 183 10 Rich systems: floodplain rivers 185 10.1 Introduction 185 10.2 From an erosive river to a depositional one 187 10.3 Submerged plants 188 10.4 Growth of submerged plants 190 10.5 Methods of measuring the primary productivity of submerged plants 193 10.6 Enclosure methods 194 10.7 Other methods 195 10.8 Submerged plants and the river ecosystem 196 10.9 Farther downstream: swamps and floodplains 196 10.10 Productivity of swamps and floodplain marshes 198 10.11 Swamp soils and the fate of the high primary production 199 10.12 Oxygen supply and soil chemistry in swamps 200 10.13 Emergent plants and flooded soils 202 10.14 Swamp and marsh animals 204 10.15 Whitefish and blackfish 205 10.16 Latitudinal differences in floodplains 206 10.17 Polar floodplains 207 10.18 Cold-temperate floodplains 208 10.19 Warm-temperate floodplains 209 10.20 Tropical floodplains 211 10.21 The Sudd 212 10.22 Further reading 215 11 Floodplains and human affairs 216 11.1 Introduction 216 11.2 Floodplain services 218 11.3 Floodplain fisheries 220 11.4 Floodplain swamps and human diseases 222 11.5 Case studies: the Pongola River 226 11.6 River and floodplain management and rehabilitation 231 11.7 Mitigation: plant bed management in rivers 231 11.8 Enhancement 234 11.9 Rehabilitation 236 11.10 Inter-basin transfers and water needs 238 11.11 Further reading 240 12 Lakes and other standing waters 242 12.1 Introduction 242 12.2 The origins of lake basins 244 12.3 Lake structure 248 12.4 The importance of the catchment area 254 12.5 Lakes as autotrophic or heterotrophic systems 255 12.6 The continuum of lakes 258 12.7 Lake history 263 12.8 Organic remains 267 12.9 General problems of interpretation of evidence from sediment cores 269 12.10 Two ancient lakes 270 12.11 Younger lakes 271 12.12 Filling in 276 12.13 Summing-up 278 12.14 Further reading 278 13 The communities of shallow standing waters: mires,shallow lakes and the littoral zone 280 13.1 Introduction 280 13.2 What determines the nature of mires and littoral zones? 280 13.3 Temperature 281 13.4 Nutrients 282 13.5 Littoral communities in lakes 286 13.6 The structure of littoral communities 288 13.7 Periphyton 291 13.8 Heterotrophs among the plants 292 13.9 Neuston 295 13.10 Linkages, risks and insurances among the littoral communities 296 13.11 Latitude and littorals 297 13.12 The role of the nekton 299 13.13 Further reading 301 14 Plankton communities of the pelagic zone 304 14.1 Kitchens and toilets 304 14.2 Phytoplankton and sinking 306 14.3 Photosynthesis and growth of phytoplankton 309 14.4 Net production and growth 310 14.5 Nutrient uptake and growth rates of phytoplankton 311 14.6 Distribution of freshwater phytoplankton 312 14.7 Washout 314 14.8 Cyanobacterial blooms 314 14.9 Heterotrophs in the plankton: viruses and bacteria 319 14.10 The microbial pathway 320 14.11 Zooplankton 321 14.12 Grazing 324 14.13 Feeding and grazing rates of zooplankton 328 14.14 Competition and predation among grazers 328 14.15 Predation on zooplankters by invertebrates 330 14.16 Fishes in the open-water community 333 14.17 Predation on the zooplankton and fish production 335 14.18 Avoidance of vertebrate predation by the zooplankton 338 14.19 Piscivores and piscivory 340 14.20 Functioning of the open-water community 340 14.21 Polar lakes 342 14.22 Cold-temperate lakes 343 14.23 Warm-temperate lakes 346 14.24 Very warm lakes in the tropics 347 14.25 Further reading 349 15 The profundal zone and carbon storage 352 15.1 The end of the line 352 15.2 The importance of oxygen 353 15.3 Profundal communities 356 15.4 Biology of selected benthic invertebrates 357 15.5 What the sediment-living detritivores really eat 359 15.6 Influence of the open-water community on the profundal benthos 361 15.7 Sediment storage and the global carbon cycle 365 15.8 Further reading 370 16 Fisheries in standing waters 371 16.1 Some general principles 371 16.2 Some basic fish biology 372 16.3 Eggs 372 16.4 Feeding 374 16.5 Breeding 375 16.6 Choice of fish for a fishery 379 16.7 Measurement of fish production 379 16.8 Growth measurement 381 16.9 Fish production and commercial fisheries in lakes 383 16.10 Changes in fisheries: a case study 387 16.11 The East African Great Lakes 390 16.12 Fish culture 395 16.13 Stillwater angling 400 16.14 Amenity culture and the aquarium trade 403 16.15 Further reading 405 17 The uses, abuses and restoration of standing waters 406 17.1 Introduction 406 17.2 Services provided by standing waters 408 17.3 Domestic water supply, eutrophication and reservoirs 409 17.4 Eutrophication - nutrient pollution 410 17.5 Dams and reservoirs 415 17.6 Fisheries in new lakes 418 17.7 Effects downstream of the new lake 419 17.8 New tropical lakes and human populations 419 17.9 Man-made tropical lakes, the balance of pros and cons 419 17.10 Amenity and conservation 421 17.11 The alternative states model 424 17.12 Ponds 426 17.13 Restoration approaches for standing waters: symptom treatment 426 17.14 Treatment of proximate causes: nutrient control 428 17.15 Present supplies of phosphorus, their relative contributions and how they are related to the algal crop 430 17.16 Methods available for reducing total phosphorus loads 430 17.17 In-lake methods 434 17.18 Complications for phosphorus control - sediment sources 434 17.19 Nitrogen reduction 435 17.20 Habitat creation 436 17.21 Further reading 438 18 Climate change and the future of freshwaters 440 18.1 Introduction 440 18.2 Climate change 442 18.3 Existing effects of freshwaters 444 18.4 Future effects 449 18.5 Future effects on freshwaters 453 18.6 Switches and feedbacks 457 18.7 Wicked problems 464 18.8 Mitigation of global warming 468 18.9 The remedy of ultimate causes 468 18.10 Rewilding the world 474 18.11 Reforming governments 477 18.12 Further reading 479 References 483 Index 515