Hydrobiocenoses of lake Tulos, Southwestern Karelia

Abstract

The following paper assesses the current state of the phyto- and zooplankton and benthic communities of Lake Tulos, which geographically is a part of the Green Belt of Fennoscandia. The lake is located on the territory of the planned National Park Tulos. The species diversity, the ratio of major taxonomic groups and the structure, abundance and biomass of predominant aquatic organism species in the littoral and pelagic zones of the lake were studied. According to the obtained results (the level of quantitative development and the ratio of phytoplankton species during the growing season 2018) the waters of Lake Tulos can be assigned to the third quality class, grade 3a (fairly clean), which corresponds to the -mesosaprobic zone by the saprobity scale. According to Pantle-Bukk saprobity index calculated on the basis of zooplankton, the lakes water can be attributed to oligosaprobic - the 2nd class of quality, pure natural waters. Indices of abundance of macrozoobenthos correspond to the oligotrophic class, according to the ratio of its main groups, the lake belongs to the chironomid type of lakes. The reservoir has a high recreational potential, according to the ichthyofauna composition it belongs to the water bodies of the first fishery category. Lake Tulos is a reference water body convenient for environmental monitoring in near-border areas.

Specific Features of the Macrozoobenthic Communities of Small Arctic Lakes in Eurasia

“…In later studies of various lakes in Northern Karelia (Sterligova et al, 2012), similar data are given: biomass varied from 0.22 to 1.25 g/m 2 . In the water bodies of the southern regions of Karelia (Gerd, 1956;Kuchko et al, 2019) and close in latitude areas of Arkhangelsk oblast (Novoselov et al, 2017), the biomass of macrozoobenthos was 0.07-17 g/m 2 (1-3 g/m 2 in most water bodies). In general, the biomass of benthic organisms within Karelia increases to the south, towards the temperate zone (Gerd, 1956;Sterligova et al, 2012).…”

“…To analyze the latitudinal variability of the characteristics of the macrozoobenthos communities of small lakes, an array of literature data covering water bodies mainly in the Russian part of the north and the temperate zone of the Palaearctic was used (Fig. 1): Bolshezemelskaya tundra (Baturina et al, 2012), Yamal Peninsula (Bogdanov et al, 2005;Stepanov, 2017), Putorana Plateau (Zadelenov et al, 2017, Kola Peninsula (Moiseenko et al, 2009;Denisov et al, 2015), Karelia (Gerd, 1956;Sterligova et al, 2012;Kulikova and Ryabinkin, 2015;Kuchko et al, 2019), Arkhangelsk oblast (Novoselov et al, 2017), southern Finland (Meriläinen and Hynynen, 1990;Hynynen and Meriläinen, 2005), Leningrad oblast (Belyakov and Bazhora, 2016), Kaliningrad oblast (Masyutkina, 2018), Kursk oblast (Silina and Prokin, 2008); Voronezh oblast (Silina, 2001;Sinitskii et al, 2002;Khitsova et al, 2010), Novosibirsk oblast (Vizer et al, 2018), the Volga region (Gelashvili et al, 2007;Aleksevnina et al, 2011;Romashkova, 2015), Belarus (Eremova and Orlovskaya, 1997;Lukashinets and Novik, 2015), and Sakhalin Island (Labai, 2015).…”