Primary Production and Species Richness in Lake Communities 1997 - 2000

An understanding of the relationship between species richness and productivity is crucial to understanding biodiversity in lakes. We investigated the relationship between the primary productivity of lake ecosystems and the number of species for lacustrine phytoplankton, rotifers, cladocerans, copepods, macrophytes, and fish. Our study includes two parts: (1) a survey of 33 well-studied lakes for which data on six major taxonomic groups were available; and (2) a comparison of the effects of short- and long-term whole-lake nutrient addition on primary productivity and planktonic species richness Dodson, Stanley I., Shelley E. Arnott, and Kathryn L. Cottingham. 2000. The relationship in lake communities between primary productivity and species richness. Ecology 81:2662-79. Number of sites: 33