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The Pelagic Food Web

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Lake Kinneret

Part of the book series: Aquatic Ecology Series ((AQEC,volume 6))

Abstract

Our current understanding of the food web of Lake Kinneret has developed over four decades of intensive research employing diverse methodologies such as gut content analyses, feeding experiments, stable isotopes, and modeling. The food web includes 12 major interconnected functional groups of organisms (= compartments), all contributing to a common pool of organic, inorganic, and detrital nutrients, but at differing flux rates. A schematic drawing of this food web highlights the central role of micrograzers (ciliates, heterotrophic flagellates, rotifers, copepod nauplii) in both transferring nutrients up the food web and recycling them. The evolution of our current understanding of the Kinneret food web reflects in many ways developments in the fields of ecology and limnology over the last three to four decades.

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Correspondence to Tamar Zohary .

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Zohary, T., Gal, G., Hambright, K. (2014). The Pelagic Food Web. In: Zohary, T., Sukenik, A., Berman, T., Nishri, A. (eds) Lake Kinneret. Aquatic Ecology Series, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8944-8_17

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