Polar Biol DOI 10.1007/s00300-006-0223-5ORIGINAL PAPER

• Main Authors: M. Toro, A. Camacho, C. Rochera, E. Rico, M. Bañón, E. Fernández-valiente, E. Marco, A. Justel, M. C. Avendaño, Y. Ariosa, W. F. Vincent, A. Quesada, Centro Estudios Hidrográwcos
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Austral; Byers; Byers peninsula; South Shetland Islands; Antarc*; Antarctica; Belgica antarctica
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.619.6413; http://www.cen.ulaval.ca/warwickvincent/PDFfiles/197.pdf

Abstract A limnological survey of 15 lakes and 6 streams was carried out on Byers Peninsula (Living-ston Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica) during austral summer 2001–2002. Most of the surface waters had low conductivities (20–105 S cm¡1) and nutrients (total phosphorus 0.01–0.24 M), but some coastal lakes were enriched by nutrient inputs from seal colo-nies and marine inputs. Plankton communities in the lakes contained picocyanobacteria (102–104 cells ml¡1), diatoms, chrysophytes and chlorophytes, and a large fraction of the total biomass was bacterioplankton. Zooplankton communities were dominated by Boeck-ella poppei and Branchinecta gainii; the benthic cladoc-eran Macrothrix ciliata was also recorded, for the Wrst time in Antarctica. The chironomids Belgica antarctica