Bio 346 - Freshwater Eco. (Chpt 20) --> Particle Sedimentation and Sediments Flashcards
What is the major determinant of the sediment suitability?
Its physical and chemical structure
What does algae do in shallow water?
Grow on sediments so the macrophytes can get nutrients
What lives on/within the space between sediment particles?
Heterotrophic bacteria and invertebrates
What do fish use sediment for?
Feeding, nesting and breeding
What largely determines whether the sediment surface will be oxic or anoxic and whether the apparent redox potential is high or low?
Sediment respiration
What does lake depth influence?
The length of time available for organic particles to decompose in the water column rather then become sediment
What is sediment?
Matter that settles to the bottom of a liquid
Where is lake sediment largely derived from?
Inflowing streams and rivers from the drainage basin
What does soil, vegetation cover, drainage ratio (CA:LA) and catchment slope determine? (2 things)
- Particle supply rate
2. Composition of sedimenting materials (organic vs. inorganic)
What are the characteristics related to catchment attributes? (4 things)
- Shape of lakes
- Size of lakes
- Their catchment morphometry
- Lake attributes correlated
What is the advantage of covariation?
The ability to develop simple empirical models capable of predicting a variety of sediment attributes
What is the disadvantage of covariation?
Confounds interpretations of “cause and effect”
What happens to profundal sediment is LA and max depth both increase?
Profundal sediment decreases
The organic content of the sediment is best predicted from, what?
The inorganic matter sedimentation rate
What do lake and catchment morphometry determine?
The location where most biological activity occurs in aquatic systems
What is closely associated with the sediments in shallow lakes, streams and wetlands?
Biota and its metabolism
Where is profundal sediments metabolism low?
In deep lakes
- Where high fraction of the organic matter is decomposed
Sediment organic content and lake depth, have what kind of relationship?
Negative
What happens to particles in small, low density and shallow water?
The particles get resuspended readily by turbulence and transported by currents in all aquatic systems
What is turbulence controlled by? (2 things)
- Lake size (fetch)
2. Wind speed
What happens to particles in deep lakes?
- Settle to the bottom
2. Little subject to resuspension
Sediment focusing
The process in which catchment derived sediment particles that enter lakes are transported toward low-energy sites of permanent deposition in the profundal zone
Zone of sediment erosion (ZSE)
A zone of high turbulence and dominated by coarse-grained inorganic settlements
Zone of sediment accumulation (ZSA)
A zone of low turbulence dominated by fine organic particles