Abstract Antarctica is the continent with the harshest climate on the Earth. Antarctic lakes, however, usually presents liquid water, at least during part of the year or below the ice cover, especially those from the sub-Antarctic islands and the maritime Antarctic region where climatic conditions a...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.455.1478 http://www.environmental-expert.com/Files%5C6063%5Carticles%5C8640%5C4-12-2.pdf |
| Summary: | Abstract Antarctica is the continent with the harshest climate on the Earth. Antarctic lakes, however, usually presents liquid water, at least during part of the year or below the ice cover, especially those from the sub-Antarctic islands and the maritime Antarctic region where climatic conditions are less extreme. Planktonic commu-nities in these lakes are mostly dominated by microorganisms, including bacteria and photo-trophic and heterotrophic protists, and by meta-zooplankton, usually represented by rotifers and calanoid copepods, the latter mainly from the genus Boeckella. Here I report and discuss on studies performed during the last decade that show that there is a potential for top–down con-trol of the structure of the planktonic microbial food web in sub-Antarctic and maritime Antarc-tic lakes. In some of the studied lakes, the effect of copepod grazing on protozoa, either ciliates or flagellates, depending on size of both the predator and the prey, could promote cascade effects that would be transmitted to the bacterioplankton assemblage. |
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