Content of lectures: 1) Basic environmental factors affecting phytoplankton growth - light, nutrients, temperature etc., nutrition modes, phytoplankton composition and biomass along the trophic gradient 2) Phytoplankton - overall importance, biomass measurement, community composition and diversity, functional classification, growth strategies, primary production 3) Loss processes and trophic interactions, alelopathy, toxicity 4) Phytoplankton dynamics in various spatial and temporal scales, diurnal changes, the effect of weather and disturbances on seasonal phytoplankton dynamics, Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis, biomass distribution in lakes and reservoirs, long-term trends 5) Phytoplankton blooms - causes and consequences 6) Freshwater prokaryotes - methods (cultivation, in situ methods, genomics), bacteria and Archaea in lakes, general occurrence and abundances, diversity and community structure, typical freshwater prokaryotes, biogeography and distribution along trophic gradients, seasonal succession, physiology and genomic features of typical freshwater lineages, genome-streamlining, Black Queen hypothesis 7) Freshwater viruses - methods (cultivation, in situ methods, genomics), viruses in lakes, occurrence and abundances, lytic vs. lysogenic viruses, viral shunt/viral loop, microbial interactions, Kill-the-winner hypothesis, Piggyback-the-winner hypothesis, Constant-diversity hypothesis 8) Trophic role and food specialisation of planktonic protists (bacterivory, algivory, omnivory, heterotrophy vs mixotrophy), protists as a link from bacteria to higher trophic levels 9) "Microbial loop" concept along environmental gradients - acidic and acidified lakes, dystrophic vs "clear-water" lakes. 10) Rotifers, cladocerans and copepods - methods, importance, reproduction and life cycles, secondary production and its measurement 11) Zooplankton - grazing and predation, antipredatory strategies (alterations in morphology, reproduction and migration), cyclomorphosis 12) Zooplankton - rotifer-daphnid competition, limnetic ecosystem management (fish predation, size-selective predation, trophic cascade) 13) Plankton seasonal dynamics - PEG model, plankton paradox Content of tutorials/seminar: A one-day excursion will introduce typical limnic ecosystems (fishpond, reservoir) and methods of plankton sampling. Students will prepare an essay on a selected topic (current publication) and will present it on a seminar.
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The goal is to present a comprehensive overview of the ecology of diverse freshwater plankton assemblages along the trophic gradient and under various environmental constraints. The multidisciplinary course introduces up-to-date knowledge on the ecology of planktonic organisms, including viruses, bacteria, protists, ciliates, algae, cyanobacteria, rotifers and microcrustaceans.
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Lampert W., Sommer U. 2007: Limnoecology: The Ecology of Lakes and Streams. 2nd edition, Oxford Univ. Press, 336 p..
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Pernthaler, J. 2005: Predation on prokaryotes in the water column and its ecological implications. Nature Reviews Microbiology 3(7): 537-546..
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Reynolds C.S. 2006: Ecology of Phytoplankton. Cambridge Univ. Press, 535 p..
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Rulík M., Baudišová D., Růžička J., Šimek K. 2013: Mikrobiální ekologie vod. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci. 292s. (Skripta). ISBN 978-80-244-3477-3..
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Sommer U., Adrian R. et al. 2012: Beyond the plankton ecology group (PEG) model: mechanisms driving plankton succession. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 43: 429-448..
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