Chapter 1

• Limnology


  The scientific study of all inland waters around the world
• Concepts and Definitions of Limnology

  • Greek words "limne" - marsh or pond and "ology" - the study of
  • Limnology - (Forel - 1892) - the oceanography of lakes
  • Limnology - (Lind - 1979) - as non-marine aquatic ecology
  • Limnology - (Margalef - 1983) - the ecology of non-oceanic waters
• Limnology


  • Combines the sciences of chemistry, biology, physics and geology
• Limnology & Oceanography


  Water (substrate) with fundamental properties
• Differences between Ocean and Inland Waters

  • Ocean - older, continuous in space (plants & animals are widely distributed)
  • Inland waters - ephemeral, discontinuous in space & are distributed irregularly throughout the inland continents (limited distribution of flora & fauna)
• Ocean


  35-39 grams of salt/kg water, contains NaCl
• Inland Waters


  0.01 grams of salt/kg water, salt varies, ex. Saline lakes - higher salt content
• Chemical processes in inland waters

  Depend on the geochemistry of soils in drainage basin
• Limnology (Baldi 1949)


  The scientific study of interrelated processes and methods by which matter and energy are transformed in a lake
• Limnology (Baldi 1949)


  The study of movement of matter in a body of water
• Two aspects of Limnology

  • Descriptive
  • Functional
• Ecosystem


  A natural unit consisting of living components (biotic) and non-living components (abiotic) that belong to a system of energy flow and cycling of matter
• Two aspects of structural analysis in Limnology

  • Description of abiotic components & their properties
  • Assessment of biotic components
• Analysis of the interrelated functions in an ecosystem

  • Includes research on the elements responsible for the cycling of matter, dynamic processes in abiotic systems, relationships of the organisms to environmental factors and relationships between organisms
• Limnological research includes analytical field and laboratory research
• Assessment of the practical merits of research in limnology should be made based on a detailed analysis of scientific teachings and other knowledge such as basic limnology
• Contributions of limnology to theoretical ecology

  • Community succession and factors that control it
  • Evolution of communities
  • Community diversity and spatial heterogeneity
  • Primary production and energy flow
  • Distribution of organisms
  • Evolution of ecosystems
• Early history of Limnology described by

  • Elster (1974)
  • Ueno (1976)
  • Talling (2008)
• Focus of scientists in 17th-19th centuries


  • Behavior & propagation of aquatic organisms in water
• Muller (1845) - discovered and described marine plankton
• Schwoerbel (9187) - focused on lake plankton
• F. Duvillier - described and measured internal waves
• J. Leslie (1838) - described thermal structure, wind action & light penetration in deep lakes
• Morren & Morren (1841) - described diurnal fluctuations in photosynthetic activities
• Junge (1885) & Forbes (1887) - first to treat lake as microcosm
• Forbes' work "the lake as a "microcosm" in which all elemental forces are at play and the life forms constitute an interrelated complex
• Francois Alphose Forel (1841-1912)


  Coined the term "limnology"- established the field with his studies on Lake Geneva
• Otto Zacharias - founded limnology Research in Plon (1981), Germany now the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology
• Co-founders of the International Society of London


  • August Thienemann (1882-1960) - a German zoologist
  • Einar Naumann a Swedish botanist (1891-1934)
• Weber (1907) - classification of lakes based on trophic status
• Birge and Juday (1911) - proposed the typology of lakes - the relationships between productivity of organic matter, lake depth, lake morphology, and dissolved oxygen content
• Birge (1851–1950) and Juday (1872–1944) - studied the effect of thermal and chemical stratification on the composition of plankton, conducted comparative studies on North American lakes and studied quantities such as water transparency, organic matter, and phosphorus, developing graphic correlations with frequency distributions and trends
• Juday (1916) - conducted comparative studies on several lakes in Central America
• Thienemann & Naumann (1922) -founded the International Association of Theoretical and Applied Limnology (now called the International Society of Limnology), and the establishment of a laboratory at Windermere (1931) in support of the Freshwater Biological Association, founded in 1929
• Yoshimura (1938) - established a scientific information base in Japan, and many Japanese limnologists have produced scientific works in Oceanography
• The focus in Japan is on aquaculture to use common techniques and utilize marine systems for food production
• Research laboratories - established in US, Europe - conducted research on aquatic ecosystems
• Education and training of qualified researchers continue which have contributed significantly to scientific advancement in several areas
• Tropical limnology largely advanced through research by groups from temperate regions
• Margalef (1983) - studied basic limnological processes in tropical regions