engleski

Artifical lake age impact on littoral macroinvertebrate community

Artificial lakes are man-made water bodies that are usuallycreated by digging and using a dam or lock to store water that can be used for production of electric energy, irrigation or flood control. They are heavily modified lentic waters, usually derived from lotic habitats with complex systems that represent a transitional ecosystem between lakes and rivers. Our goal was to test how anthropogenic abiotic factors such as date of artificial lake construction and water fluctuations influence littoral benthic macroinvertebrate community composition. Macroinvertebrate communities were studied at 15 artificial lakes located in the Pannonian ecoregion of Croatia. The littoral zone was sampled, on a surface area of 250m2or less, depending on the bank incline. At each sampling site, four levels of depth were defined in 25 cm segments to 1 m total depth (0 to 0.25m, 0.25m to 0.5m, 0.5m to 0.75m and 0.75m to1 m). Ten subsamples were collected using benthos hand net (25cm × 25cm ; 500μm) at each site.Older lakes have shown less water level fluctuations and how their community composition is more uniform, which can be statistically proven by the by Pielou's evenness index. We assume the reason for that is more stable conditions that allow littoral benthic macroinvertebrate communities better living environment and the possibility that older lakes stopped being used for their original purposes might also be beneficial.

artificial lakes, littoral benthic macroinvertebrate, Pielou's evenness index

nije evidentirano