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[APD] algae population dynamics
Folks,
Recently while perusing the web for who-knows-what I came across an article
on phytoplankton population dynamics. That article is by Roelke, Augustine
and Buyukates and may be downloaded as a pdf file from:
http://twri.tamu.edu/reports/2003/tr245/tr245.pdf
The twri article builds in part on work from a few years earlier by Huisman
and Weissing. One of their articles can be found on line at:
http://www.rug.nl/biologie/onderzoek/onderzoekgroepen/theoreticalbiology/pdf/hw01_ecology.pdf
These articles seem to me to have quite a bit of relevance to algae problems
in aquaria. Algae problems in planted tanks only occasionally deal with
phytoplankton (green water). More often the problems are with attached
algae. Those "algae" are actually communities of algae rather than
individual species.
Both of the studies above address the makeup of algae communities and
transitions between one community and another. It is that similarity that
piqued my interest. In a nutshell, what these and other studies have found
is that under conditions of competition for a limiting resource (nutrient,
normally) the succession of algae communities can be chaotic. Any of a
number of possible dominant communities may arise under very similar
conditions. The dominant community can switch between two or more different
combinations of species without a clearly determinstic reason for the changes.
Oddly, if a system is regularly perturbed (as with periodic water changes or
nutrient dosing) then the resulting populations may become strictly
determined by initial conditions rather than chaotic.
I haven't thought through the articles in a lot of details right now, but
three things came to mind.
1) For the sake of stability it's probably a good idea to avoid any kind of
nutrient limitation as the dynamics of a nutrient-limited population may be
chaotic.
2) Regular system perturbations like periodic cleaning, water changes and
nutrient dosing may promote stability.
3) Anectdotal evidence along the lines of "I changed X and algae problem Y
disappeared" may be unreproducable and largely useless because the result of
the change was the response of a chaotic system. Similarly for observations
like "I added X and it caused algae problem Y."
It might be interesting to apply one of these competition models to aquarium
conditions. Even more interesting if the model could be modified to include
competition with a macrophyte community.
Roger Miller
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