Plankton Size Spectra in Relation to Ecosystem Productivity, Size, and Perturbation

Quantification and comparisons of the structure of open-water plankton communities from 25 inland lakes of Ontario, from the Laurentian Great Lakes Superior, Huron, St. Clair, Ontario, and Erie, and from the Central Gyre in the North Pacific Ocean were made on the basis of the normalized biomass size spectrum. Residual variation around the fitted straight lines (corresponding to a theoretical steady state) was least for the large, oligotrophic Lake Superior and the North Pacific Gyre and greatest for eutrophic Saginaw Bay and shallow Lake Erie, suggesting progressive departure from steady-state conditions with increasing system productivity. The slopes of the normalized spectra decrease with increasing eutrophy, indicating that nannoplankton abundances are similar in all communities studied, but that associated zooplankton abundances vary by 2.5 orders of magnitude. Our results suggest that parameterization of particle-size models for prediction of potential fish production must be adjusted according to the size and productivity of the ecosystem, and that routine monitoring of communities by the normalized biomass spectrum could provide early warning of nutrient or toxic stress in aquatic ecosystems.