Climate change and nutrient fluctuations disrupt networks in lakes

Warming of lakes reduces interactions in plankton networks - in the picture a microscope image is shown of a plankton community from Lake Greifen . Thanks to a unique data set from ten Swiss lakes, an international team of researchers led by Eawag has succeeded in reconstructing entire ecological plankton networks and determining how they respond to climate change and phosphate levels. The results make one sit up and take notice. In most lakes, there are millions of small creatures that generally remain hidden from our eyes. What they have in common is that they are suspended in water and move with the current. That is why, altogether, they are called plankton, which in Greek means "the one that wanders around." Not only is there an incredible diversity of sizes and shapes among the plankton, but also of ways of life. Relationships provide stability.