UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

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Author: search.filters.author.Reaugh, Matthew L.Subject: search.filters.subject.Grazing

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    THE EFFECTS OF FRESHWATER FLOW AND GRAZING ON THE PLANKTON COMMUNITY STRUCTURE OF CHESAPEAKE BAY TRIBUTARIES
    (2005-05-02) Reaugh, Matthew L.; Roman, Michael R.; Marine-Estuarine-Environmental Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Changes in the plankton composition of estuarine systems are often driven by freshwater flow. These changes in species composition and abundance have the potential to affect trophic dynamics within the plankton community. In order to quantify the effects of freshwater flow in estuaries, the structure of the spring plankton community and copepod grazing were examined in an extreme dry (2002) and wet (2003) year in two tributaries of Chesapeake Bay. Increases in phytoplankton and copepod biomass in the wet year were large in comparison to the increase in microzooplankton biomass. Ample abundance of prey and high copepod community grazing potentials indicate that microzooplankton biomass was influenced by strong top-down control in the high flow year. While no evidence of a copepod-microzooplankton-phytoplankton trophic cascade was found, increased top-down control by grazers in combination with increased nutrient supply in wet years may be important in establishing spring phytoplankton blooms in Chesapeake Bay.