Abstract
THE natural history of small lakes has long offered a most promising field for research in an important department of biology, viz. the inter-relations of species of plants and animals in the struggle for existence, and the dependence of both upon the physical factors of their environment. As compared with the majority of land and sea areas, a small lake constitutes a relatively perfect “unit of environment,” the different elements of which can be determined with an accuracy impossible in most other cases. It is on this account, we suppose, that the detailed study of lake plankton has rapidly gained so many votaries since the lines of quantitative investigation were laid down by Dr. Zacharias and his pupils. In America, especially, the investigation of lacustrine plankton has been taken up with zeal by a considerable army of workers, the vast network of lakes in the basin of the St. Lawrence and the upper reaches of the Mississippi providing unrivalled opportunities for the most diversified inquiries. The latest1 contribution upon this subject is at least as interesting as its predecessors, and we propose here to give a short account of Prof. Birge's principal results.
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G., W. The Plankton of Lake Mendota. Nature 58, 259 (1898). https://doi.org/10.1038/058259a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/058259a0