Abstract
Relative coverage of filamentous periphytic algae increased with chlorophyll a (chl a) biomass on natural substrata in 22 northwestern United States and Swedish streams. A biomass range of 100–150 mg chl a m−2 may represent a critical level for an aesthetic nuisance; below those levels, filamentous coverage was less than 20%. Other indices of water quality (dissolved oxygen content and measures of benthic macroinvertebrate diversity) were apparently unaffected by periphytic biomass or filamentous coverage in these streams. Neither was biomass related to limiting nutrient content (soluble reactive phosphorus, SRP), as has been observed in previous experiments using bare rocks in streams and slides in artificial channels. Ambient SRP concentration may not be a useful predicter of periphyton accrual on natural substrates, due to uptake and recycling of P throughout the stream and undetermined losses such as sloughing and grazing.
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Welch, E.B., Jacoby, J.M., Horner, R.R. et al. Nuisance biomass levels of periphytic algae in streams. Hydrobiologia 157, 161–168 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00006968
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00006968