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Microbial Food Webs in Freshwater Planktonic Ecosystems

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Complex Interactions in Lake Communities

Abstract

The new microbial paradigm that implicates bacteria, small algae, and protozoa in major pathways for carbon flow was first developed for the pelagic food webs of oligotrophic oceans (Pomeroy 1974, 1984), and is now being recognized in lake and river plankton (Porter 1984; Porter et al. 1985; Stockner and Antia 1986; Stockner 1987; Meyer et al. 1985). The microbial component of freshwater food webs consists of picoplankton such as bacteria, coccoid and rod-shaped cyanobacteria and small eukaryotes (Stockner and Antia 1986), heterotrophic microflagellates (Porter et al. 1985; Riemann 1985) and mixotrophic flagellates (Porter et al. 1985; Bird and Kalff 1986), and ciliates (Pace and Orcutt 1981; Porter et al. 1985). Protozoan members of these groups are also active bacterivores in marine and estuarine microbial food webs along with additional groups not found in fresh water.

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Authors
  1. John G. Stockner
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  2. Karen G. Porter
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, 46556-0369, Indiana, USA

    Stephen R. Carpenter

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Stockner, J.G., Porter, K.G. (1988). Microbial Food Webs in Freshwater Planktonic Ecosystems. In: Carpenter, S.R. (eds) Complex Interactions in Lake Communities. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3838-6_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3838-6_5

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