The role of zooplankton in the regulation of phytoplankton biomass growth and water transparency in water bodies polluted by nutrients

Abstract

Experimental studies were carried out in a water body near Moscow and in a flow-through system in the territory of fertilized agricultural fields. It is shown that under high biogenic load, at the concentrations Ptot = 0.14 mg P/l, Pmin = 0.07 mg P/l, and the ratio N: P = 7.9: 1, in early summer, and in the absence of plankton-eating fish, zooplankton was regulating phytoplankton development and contributed to the preservation of high water transparency. At the biomass ratio of plant-eating zooplankton to eatable phytoplankton from 0.6 to 42.2, zooplankton can reduce the eatable part of phytoplankton within a day. The main consumers of the eatable fraction of phytoplankton biomass were large-size filterers Daphnia longispina.