Norbert Walz - Böcker

This volume combines articles on shallow lakes from leading European scientists in limnology. It covers aspects of the dynamics of macrophytes, phytoplankton, zooplankton and benthos, nutrient loading, littoral-pelagic interactions, and sediment-water interactions, as well as lake management. The object was not to separate theory (for example, modelling) and management in order to generate new theories for the understanding of shallow lake ecosystems. The volume provides a comprehensive overview of the ecology of shallow lakes, a lake type which differs in prominent ways from deeper lakes.

Continuous cultures, i.e. chemostats with an continuousdilution rate, are model ecosystems for the study of generalregulation principles in plankton communities.Further to an introduction, general continuous culturemethods and especially the characteristics of rotifercontinuousculture systems are presented. Sections onmetabolism and energetics in chemostats, growth models,competition and predator-prey interactions, as well as theapplication of rotifer continuous cultures to ecotoxicologyand their use in aquaculture are included.

This volume combines articles on shallow lakes from leading European scientists in limnology. It covers aspects of the dynamics of macrophytes, phytoplankton, zooplankton and benthos, nutrient loading, littoral-pelagic interactions, and sediment-water interactions, as well as lake management. The object was not to separate theory (e.g. modelling) and management in order to generate new theories for the understanding of shallow lake ecosystems. The volume provides a comprehensive overview of the ecology of shallow lakes, a lake type which differs in prominent ways from deeper lakes. The broad spectrum of issues may also reflect the spectrum of interested readers such as limnologists, water engineers, hydrobiologists, who will be informed on a high level about new developments.

Rotifera are a very common group of invertebrates and, therefore, play a considerable role in the food webs of plankton and benthos of lakes and rivers worldwide. Their ecological success is based on their distinct pattern of reproduction: a large part of them, the Monogononta, are famous for their unique mode of reproduction with parthenogenetic females and a rather rare appearance of sexuality with males. On the other hand, the Bdelloidea completely abstain from sexuality. Although many life cycle characteristics make the Rotifera ideal objects for the study of important scientific and applied questions, many patterns and mechanisms of their ecology, evolution and reproduction are still not very well known. In August 2009 leading scientists met in Berlin, Germany, at the symposium ROTIFERA XII to discuss their newest results. This book collects the most essential original articles and presents them to the broader public.The increasing use of tools from molecular biology has brought a paradigm shift to the study of rotifers. Together with biochemical methods, the findings from studies using these techniques are presented in the first two parts of this book, covering genetics, evolution, and reproduction. The last two parts are dedicated to innovative findings from the more traditional fields of ecology, biogeography and taxonomy.