Response of phytoplankton to protective-restoration treatments enhancing water quality in a shallow urban lake

Abstract

Lake Jeziorak Mały is a shallow urban lake where storm water pretreatment separators and a fountain-based water aeration system were installed as protective-restoration measures to enhance water quality. We investigated the effect of these procedures on phytoplankton dynamics and physicochemical properties in the littoral and pelagial zones in 1996–2003, 2005, and 2013. A decrease in cyanobacteria proportion, abundance, and biomass has been noticed, and other phytoplankton groups increased after these procedures. Significantly elevated species diversity was recorded in the littoral zone with the exchange of cyanobacteria and diatom dominant species typically induced by alteration from hypertrophic to eutrophic status. For example, the polytrophic Limnothrix redekei was replaced by eutrophic Planktolyngbya brevicellularis. This stemmed from greater oxygenation, water visibility and diminished pH, conductivity, and orthophosphates. Our results showed that introducing these restoration measures influence on the long-term succession of phytoplankton and induced the change from a polytrophic to eutrophic state, and that such measures are vitally important in future considerations of shallow urban lake management.