Freshwater biology

Oxsjön, a lake in Sweden. Freshwater biology focuses on environments like lakes.
A pond in the Oconee River Floodplain in Georgia, whose surface is covered in duckweed but still contains fish.

Freshwater biology is the scientific biological study of freshwater ecosystems and is a branch of limnology. This field seeks to understand the relationships between living organisms in their physical environment. These physical environments may include rivers, lakes, streams, ponds, reservoirs, or wetlands.[1] Knowledge from this discipline is also widely used in industrial processes to make use of biological processes involved with sewage treatment[2] and water purification. Water presence and flow is an essential aspect to species distribution and influences when and where species interact in freshwater environments.[1]

In the UK, the Freshwater Biological Association based near Windermere in Cumbria was one of the early institutions to research the biology of freshwater and promote the concepts of trophism in lakes and demonstrated the process of migration from oligotrophic water through mesotrophic to marsh.[3]

Freshwater biology is also used to study the effects of climate change and increased human impact on both aquatic systems and wider ecosystems.[4] Freshwater organisms, vertebrates especially, appear to be at a higher extinction risk from climate change than terrestrial or marine organisms. [5]

  1. ^ a b Castillo-Escrivà, Andreu; Aguilar-Alberola, Josep A.; Mesquita-Joanes, Francesc (2017-06-01). "Spatial and environmental effects on a rock-pool metacommunity depend on the landscape setting and dispersal mode". Freshwater Biology. 62 (6): 1004–1011. doi:10.1111/fwb.12920. ISSN 1365-2427.
  2. ^ "Open University - Sewage treatment processes".[permanent dead link‍]
  3. ^ "History of FBA". Freshwater Biological Association.
  4. ^ Rockström, Johan; Steffen, Will; Noone, Kevin; Persson, Åsa; Chapin, F. Stuart; Lambin, Eric F.; Lenton, Timothy M.; Scheffer, Marten; Folke, Carl (2009). "A safe operating space for humanity" (PDF). Nature. 461 (7263): 472–475. Bibcode:2009Natur.461..472R. doi:10.1038/461472a. PMID 19779433.
  5. ^ Reid, Andrea; Carlson, Andrew; Creed, Irena F.; Eliason, Erika J.; Gell, Peter A.; Johnson, Pieter; Kidd, Karen; MacCormack, Tyson; Olden, Julian; Omerod, Steve J.; Smol, John P.; Taylor, William; Tockner, Klement; Vermaire, Jesse; Dudgeon, David; Cooke, Steven J. (2018-11-22). "Emerging threats and persistent conservation challenges for freshwater biodiversity". Biological Reviews. 94 (3): 849–873. doi:10.1111/brv.12480. PMID 30467930. S2CID 53717906.