Lake Metabolism – Lake Sampling Techniques
... Methods Various methods used in the lake profile were the Kemmerer sampling, quadrant sampling, dissolved oxygen and temperature sampling and light zonation sampling. The Kemmerer sampling included taking the boat out rather far from the shore and dropping the net shaped Kemmerer and filled the nozzle with water and then emptied the nozzle into a container and then labeled it, of which two samples were collected. With the quadrant sampling a plastic square 1m-quadrant sampler was used to measure the density of biomass of rooted macrophytes. Here the square was placed near the shoreline and all the biomass living in that area was collected in to a bag, and the quadrant sampling was done twice. The light zonation technique involved using the Secchi, which is a disk like object, which was put in the water going down, and then pulled up and the average was taken which is the Secchi measure of light penetration. In the dissolved oxygen and temperature sampling water was collected at several levels and then tested using an element tracing kit. Results The shoreline development was determined to be 42,317.98 m2 from equation 1 above. The graph depicted shows the different concentrations and pH and light penetrations and various depths and certain information can be obtained from the graph. The light penetration at 1% was determined to be 4.160 m, from equation number 2 above. Also the plant species found in the littoral waters were Water willows, cattails, green algae, blue green algae, bushy pondweed and fanwort. The Phytoplankton species found were blue green algae diatoms, filamentous green algae, plant-like flagellate, euglena (a plant-like flagellate), colonial green algae, brown algae, pediastrum (a colonial green algae). The zooplankton found was copepod larvae (nauplius & metanauplius) & adults, cladocera, rotifer, animal-like flagellate, insect larvae & nymphs, annelid, ciliate, dinoflagellate, amoeba (a rhizopod), ostracod, paramecium (a ciliate). Discussion The shoreline development is the diversity of the shoreline along the body of water near which it resides. Some morphometry of the lake the shoreline length was 123,160 ft, the surface area was 1380 acres, and the volume was 23,300 acre feet. The shoreline development was 42,317.98 m2, which means that the shoreline is fairly well developed. Most aquatic plants, which are also called hydrophytes, live in places that receive sunlight. These plants grow near the water surface, in shallow water, or along the shore. Many aquatic plants have air spaces in their stems and leaves. The air spaces help them stand erect or stay afloat. Many of the different species of littoral plants found were algae (green, blue-green, brown) common freshwater plants including the water willow, cattails, bushy pondweed and fanwor. This was prevalent when doing the quadrant sampling technique where a variety of the plant and algae species were found. The results from the Kemmerer sampling at the epilimnion level of the river where phytoplankton and zooplankton, along with some of the fore mentioned algae were contained into two samples in order to get a better grasp on the aquatic species, by adding a specific reagent to one sample that makes phytoplankton more visible and virtually eliminates all zooplankton in that sample and vice versa in the other sample making the zooplankton more accessible, from this we had to abil...