The Role of Fish in Harmful Algal Bloom Management: Results of Pond Experiments Across Seasons
摘要
Cyanobacterial blooms are one of the most prominent ecological and environmental problems around the world and the control of cyanobacterial blooms is extremely urgent. Aeration and fish are both believed to control cyanobacterial blooms, but they are not always effective. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether cyanobacterial blooms can be continuously controlled by fish addition after the end of artificial disturbancein in ponds that had successed in controlling cyanobacteria blooms using artificially mixing. The occurrence of cyanobacterial blooms in two ponds (420 m3) without fish was eliminated by artificial aeration. From September 2021, aeration was terminated in both ponds. One pond was treated with fish addition including 50-kg Carassius auratus, 50-kg Hypophthalmichthys molitrix and 15-kg H. nobilis and the other pond was selected as the control without any treatments. One year latter, the cell density of phytoplakton in the control pond was obviously higher than the treated pond. Cyanophyta was almost dominated in the control pond but the proportion of chlorophyta often reached to 50% in the treated pond. At the initial stage of the experiment Scenedesmus, Microcystis, Pediastrum and Nitzschia were dominant successively but the proportion of each genus was less than 40% in both ponds. The proportion of Microcystis became much higher in the control pond and the value was higher than 80% frequently after the aeration was stopped for one year. In the treated pond, the propotion of Microcystis was generally lower than 40%. The variation in the indices describing the ranking distribution of phytoplankton showed that the competition between phytoplankton gradually became smaller, and phytoplankton were less likely to be extinct after the addition of fish. Cynoabcterial blooms did not obviously reappear in the treatment with fish addition after stopping artificial mixing.