Shane BradtThis talk details how UNH researchers used the cyanoScope kit to evaluate the affect of anadromous juvenile alewife on the plankton population in Lower Mill Pond, Brewster, MA. A trophic cascade was observed, where planktivory eliminated the zooplankton population, resulting in a high (85-100%) proportion of the edible (<50 um) cyanobacterial population in the whole lake water and bloom conditions. Analysis of gut contents revealed that juvenile alewife altered their feeding strategy to benthic detritivory of cyanobacteria, suggesting a trophic shift from secondary to primary consumer.
The Lower Mill Pond Case Study: Evaluating Trophic Cascades on Cape Cod – a presentation given by Nancy Leland of the Lim-Tex, Inc. at the Cyanobacteria Monitoring Collaborative Mini-Conference on January 16, 2020 at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH.
