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Periphyton Production On Wood And Sediment: Substratum-Specific Response To Laboratory And Whole-Lake Nutrient Manipulations, Yvonne Vadeboncoeur, David M. Lodge

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Substratum heterogeneity is a large source of variability in periphyton production, but the influence of substratum on periphyton response to experimental manipulations is rarely measured. Using laboratory and whole-lake experiments, we compared area-specific primary production of periphyton on wood (epixylon) and sediment (epipelon), and tested whether periphyton on the 2 substrata responded differently to water-column fertilization. In the laboratory, natural periphyton assemblages on wood or sediment were exposed to 1 of 6 treatments in a fully factorial (light [250, 70, or 10 μmol m⁻² s⁻¹] × nutrient [control or + N and P]) experiment. We measured ^{14 …}