PLANKTON COMMUNITIES OF ARTIFICIAL LAKES CREATED ON IRISH CUTAWAY PEATLANDS

Lake creation represents a major post-harvesting land-use option for industrial cutaway peatlands in Ireland, yet little is currently understood about the ecology of cutaway water-bodies, particularly at the microbiota level. The current paper describes for the first time the littoral zooplankton community in three contrasting artificial cutaway lakes and one natural bog lake. The study lakes, which were sampled on five occasions in 2003, contrasted strongly in their physico-chemical characteristics, nutrient states and trophic classifications. These trends reflected variations between sites in sediment types, water supply sources and catchment land uses. In the absence of fish, invertebrate predation by cyclopoid copepods (Tropocyclops prasinus) and cladocerans (Polyphemus pediculus) appeared to play an elevated role in structuring the zooplankton communities in the study lakes, in terms of abundance, species composition and size structure