Aquatic Food Webs
Background
For almost a decade, Harkness has hosted a research program using a comparative lakes approach to understand variation in food webs here in Algonquin Park and beyond. Initially, Joe Rasmussen's Lab (then at McGill) led the way with work on lake trout food webs and more recently on brook trout food webs. Jake Vander Zanden's research (Ph.D. work in Joe's lab) provided a fascinating look at the sources of variation in lake trout food webs and its implication for contaminant loadings. Now, Kevin McCann's lab (U of Guelph) is pursuing new questions on food webs in Algonquin lakes.
Lake ecosystems in Algonquin Park are unique in Ontario because of the concentration of lake trout and brook trout populations. Cisco are a common planktivore in many lakes and recent sampling indicates that their diversity of ecological forms is far greater than previously known. Cyprinid assemblages are still found in many lakes while other lakes have introduced predators. Many questions can be addressed in this kind of setting. The food web program at Harkness is one of our important research areas with many collaborative interactions.
Back To Aquatic Projects.