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No Small Matter? An Increase of 30 Trillion Amphipods (plus or minus a few) in Lake Superior between 1973 and 2005
Citation:
KELLY, J. R., J. V. SCHAROLD, S. E. MILLER, P. M. YURISTA, J. STOCKWELL, R. DERMOTT, T. JOHNSON, AND M. BALCER. No Small Matter? An Increase of 30 Trillion Amphipods (plus or minus a few) in Lake Superior between 1973 and 2005. Presented at Making a Great Lake Superior Conference, Duluth, MN, October 29 - 31, 2007.
Impact/Purpose:
Efforts to protect the environment and consider if our stewardship is effective must be based on firm knowledge of the ecological condition and trends in the environment. Lake Superior was last assessed more than 30 years ago and our bi-national biological re-assessment is 2005 shows an interesting trend in a major biological indicator.
Description:
We compared a lakewide biological sampling in 2005 with the other lakewide biological sampling of Lake Superior in 1973...Lakewide, there were 40 trillion Diporeia in 2005, an increase of approx. 30 trillion compared with 1973. The open questions: what caused this apparent change and what does this signal about the food web structure of the lake?