Evidence for biotic control of Australian reservoir phytoplankton communities and the potential for applied biomanipulation

La Trobe University Faculty of Science, Technology and Engineering Murray Darling Freshwater Research Centre

MDFRC item.

Although some concerns have been expressed with respect to the applicability of biomanipulation to Australian reservoirsand other inland waters, no major obstacles were found in this review. The previous doubts stimulated research, which hasprovided evidence for unexpected mechanisms of food web interactions, such as positive effects of small copepods onplanktonic algae, higher than usual grazing potential of cladoceran communities, and direct positive effects of planktivoreson phytoplankton. Further research into zooplankton-cyanobacteria interactions should indicate how widespread is thepreviously reported ability of some southern hemisphere crustaceans to benefit at a population level from feeding on cyanobacteria.Quantitative fisheries acoustics, which has not been widely used in biomanipulation trials before, is a promising newtool in the assessment of the biomass of planktivorous fish in the pelagic zone of reservoirs.