The limnology and plankton ecology of prarie saline lakes of Saskatchewan
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Prairie saline lakes are unusual ecosystems with major ecological, economic and recreational importance. Despite their ecological value, anthropogenic activities are conducted with little knowledge of their impacts. Early studies conducted between the 1940s and 1980s were semi-quantitative and limited by available technology. Historical quantitative data sets collected between 1989 to 1995 for nine Saskatchewan prairie lakes whose salinity ranges from 0.2-170.3 g TDS·L⁻¹ were analyzed to determine if there was any relationship between salinity, nutrient concentrations, plankton biomass and community composition. Prairie saline lakes are characterized by high N and P concentrations which increase along a specific conductivity gradient. Specific conductivity is significantly related to total phosphorus, soluble reactive phosphorus, sum nitrogen, ammonia and dissolved oxygen concentrations. Chlorophyll α concentrations were significantly correlated with total phosphorus, sum nitrogen, silica, temperature, surface area and Secchi depth. Sestonic ratios suggest N- and P-limitation for phytoplankton were present in all of the study lakes, but were less severe in the higher salinity lakes. In eutrophic fresh water lakes, elevated nutrients are correlated with high phytoplankton biomass. In prairie saline lakes, phytoplankton biomass is low relative to N and P concentrations. In addition, crustacean zooplankton biomass is high and phytoplankton biomass alone does not appear sufficient to support this zooplankton biomass. The phytoplankton community composition is most strongly affected by salinity, with a greater proportion of flagellate phytoplankton taxa occurring as salinity increases. There is also an unexpected decrease in the proportion of cyanobacteria in the phytoplankton community. As salinity increases, the crustacean zooplankton community shifts from a mixed community to one exclusively dominated by Artemia. Regression models of phyto- and zooplankton biomass developed in fresh water systems were applied to the study lakes to investigate their applicability. Total phytoplankton biomass and inedible phytoplankton biomass were overestimated by TP, while edible phytoplankton biomass was underestimated TP. Zooplankton biomass was not accurately predicted by ch1 α concentrations or total phytoplankton biomass, but predictions based on TP were accurate. The saline lakes tend to have a greater proportion of small, flagellate phytoplankton taxa which are a prime food source for crustacean zooplankton. In these lakes the total phytoplankton biomass was lower than would be expected based on TP concentrations. It is possible that these phytoplankton taxa are capable of withstanding the zooplankton grazing pressure while still managing to outcompete larger, slower growing phytoplankton taxa for nutrients. It is also possible that there is an alternate food source available to the zooplankton, such as benthic algae and/or bacteria.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".