Disturbances are expected to increase variability and/or decrease predictability in ecosystems, while dispersal (or immigration) may have positive or negative effects on ecosystem stability. We conducted a mesocosm experiment with pelagic zooplankton to examine the independent and interactive effects of a nutrient pulse and immigration from neighbouring lakes on (a) temporal variation in the me...

The effects of floating macroalgae (250 g DW m(-2)) on photoautotrophic microbenthos were studied in a flow-through mesocosm with a parallel mesocosm without macroalgae serving as Control. Vertical microprofiles of O(2) at the sediment-water interface showed a immediate and complete suppression of photosynthetic activity of microphytobenthos (MPB) under the macroalgal canopy, resulting in a shi...

Recent studies on the impacts of ocean acidification on pelagic communities have identified changes in carbon to nutrient dynamics with related shifts in elemental stoichiometry. In principle, mesocosm experiments provide the opportunity of determining temporal dynamics of all relevant carbon and nutrient pools and, thus, calculating elemental budgets. In practice, attempts to budget mesocosm e...

this paper has three parts. in the first part, we bring to the fore an ancient vedic concept of mesocosm and discuss its religious and cosmic significance within indian religion. this part also brings an initial approach towards philosophy of spirituality by focusing on the role of breath within the very concept of mesocosm. in the second part, based on our preliminary analysis, we present an o...

Periodical cicadas emerge from below ground every 13 or 17 years in North American forests, with individual broods representing the synchronous movement of trillions of individuals across geographic regions. Due to predator satiation, most individuals escape predation, die, and become deposited as detritus. Some of this emergent biomass falls into woodland aquatic habitats (small streams and wo...

The impact of ocean acidification and carbonation on microbial community structure was assessed during a large-scale in situ costal pelagic mesocosm study, included as part of the EPOCA 2010 Arctic campaign. The mesocosm experiment included ambient conditions (fjord) and nine mesocosms with pCO2 levels ranging from ∼ 145 to ∼ 1420 μatm. Samples for the present study were collected at ten time p...

1. Fish can play an important role in coupling benthic and pelagic habitats by consuming benthic prey and providing essential nutrients to algae in dissolved form. However, little is known about the factors affecting the magnitude of this nutrient subsidy. 2. Using laboratory and mesocosm experiments we evaluated how varying ingestion rates of bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus) affects fish...

Short term nitrogen uptake dynamics in the marshes of the southern Everglades, USA, were determined through implementation of a field mesocosm and isotopic enrichment method. The approach was tested using six mesocosms, three enriched with a 300% N tracer, Ca(NO3)2 (6 98% N) and three unenriched mesocosms. This N tracer technique allowed the determination of nitrogen fluxes between key ecosyste...

The natural variability on a spatial and temporal scale was examined in the zooplankton community of mesocosms from Syngenta Crop Protection AG (Stein, Switzerland), with the focus on improving the experimental design and evaluation of mesocosm studies. Analysis was performed using zooplankton data collected during a three-year period in 3 (1996 and 1998) to 12 (1997) ponds. Interreplicate vari...