Abstract
Loch Leven is a large, shallow lake in lowland Scotland, UK. Scientific research began here almost 200 years ago. Early research characterised the biodiversity and physical characteristics of the loch, providing an important historical background for future research. In the mid-1960s, this ad hoc approach was superseded by a more structured research programme under the umbrella of the International Biological Programme. This was the beginning of the Loch Leven long-term monitoring programme. Today, the results of these studies form one of the longest and most comprehensive limnological datasets for shallow freshwater lakes in the world, comprising more than 500 physical, chemical and biological variables collected at two-weekly intervals. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the start of the long term monitoring programme, and to highlight the scientific investigations still being conducted at Loch Leven, the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) organised a symposium entitled “Loch Leven: 40 years of scientific research” in Kinross, Scotland, UK, on 11 December 2008. This examined the role of long-term monitoring in developing our understanding of the links between pollution, climate change and ecological responses in shallow lakes. This article introduces a series of papers summarising the scientific results presented at this meeting.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the Kinross Estates, Loch Leven Fisheries, Loch Leven Trustees, Scottish Natural Heritage, Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Royal Society for the Protection of Birds for their support for our scientific research at Loch Leven. We are also grateful to Alex Kirika and the late Tony Bailey-Watts who maintained the long-term monitoring programme at Loch Leven for more than 30 years. This research was funded by Scottish Natural Heritage, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and the Natural Environment Research Council, UK. Loch Leven is part of the UK Environmental Change Network (http://www.ecn.ac.uk/).
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Guest editors: L. May & B. M. Spears / Loch Leven: 40 years of scientific research
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May, L., Spears, B.M. (2011). A history of scientific research at Loch Leven, Kinross, Scotland. In: May, L., Spears, B.M. (eds) Loch Leven: 40 years of scientific research. Developments in Hydrobiology, vol 218. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4333-5_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4333-5_2
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