Aquatic Life in The Books Store

This volume provides a synthesis of long-term ecological analyses in the Bornhöved Lake District as a representative landscape of northern Germany. The emphasis is on the comprehensive assessment of matter and energy fluxes in and between the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and their biocoenotic structures and dynamics on the one hand, and on transdisciplinary landscape planning approaches on the other. In each respect the development of novel hierarchical modelling approaches at various spatial and temporal scales is fundamental to the understanding of the structure and function of systems and to integrative resource management strategies. Thus, the book is not only commendable for ecologists, but is equally useful for botanists, zoologists, geographers, landscape planners, soil scientists, agronomers, hydrologists, climatologists and other scientists interested in energy balances or the quality and quantity of waterflows and nutrient cycles, and managers looking for relevant case studies and model answers to their questions.

There are many shallow lakes in the world. Many of them play an important socio-economic role as contributors to the drinking water supply, in flood attenuation, fisheries and recreation activities. Because of the current anthropogenic changes in the environment, such lakes rapidly respond to eutrophication and swamping. It is often hard to address these issues because many changes in the ecosystems of shallow lakes are associated with little studied physical processes. This interaction between the aquatic biota and the physical and chemical environment increases the complexity of shallow lake ecosystems. Lake Taihu, located in the delta of Yangtze River, is a typical large, shallow eutrophic lake with area of 2338 km² and maximum depth of less than 3m .

This book provides basic data on various aspects of this lake and summarizes research work on the interaction between its ecology and physical limnology. It will be a reference for teachers and students of freshwater ecology and biology, the aquatic environment in general, and, most strikingly, for all those interested in physical limnology.