Marie-Elodie PergaNational Institute for Agronomical ResearchAlpine Research Center for lake food webs 75 Avenue de Corzent, Thonon les Bains, France perga@thonon.inra.fr |
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Everything you can do with Whitefish when you’re not a fish biologist |
| The whitefish Coregonus lavaretus (L.) constitutes the major fisheries resource in French subalpine lakes. In addition, as a zooplanktivorous predator, whitefish occupy the top position in the pelagic food web of these lakes. I hence use whitefish as a model species to study carbon and energy fluxes within the pelagic food web using trophic biomarkers such as C and N stable isotopes and fatty acids. Here, I provide examples of how C stable isotope and fatty acid measures on whitefish tissues can document C sources fueling the pelagic food web of contemporaneous lake ecosystems. Many limnology labs have extensive collections of archived fish scales. I also show that C stable isotope measures can be performed on archived fish scales to investigate retrospectively how human perturbations have altered C cycling in lakes. Besides, whitefish was introduced in the late XIXth century in some of these French subalpine lakes. Combining paleo-limnology and stable isotope methods, I also study the impact of whitefish introduction on lake food webs over the last 120 years. |
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Ort |
| 07.05.2009 15:00 Uhr Großer Hörsaal |
© IGB |