Seasonal variation of water quality parameters and plankton in a shallow Greek lake

Water quality was monitored monthly in five sampling stations during 1998-1999 in Lake Pamvotis (NW Greece), a shallow eutrophic lake influenced mostly by external and internal organic loads. Important relationships were found between physicochemical and biological parameters as elucidated by redundancy analysis. Organic load, as expressed by the chemical oxygen demand, affected cyanophyte biomass in the lake while temperature was the most important factor for chlorophyte abundance. Organic load also affected the abundance of zooplankton, but no relationship was found between the concentration of dissolved oxygen and zooplankton.