OpticallyactivesubstancesandtheircontributionstotheunderwaterlightclimateinLakeTaihu.pdfVIP

Optically active substances in Lake Taihu 11 Fundamental and Applied Limnology Archiv für Hydrobiologie Vol. 170/1: 11–19, September 2007 © E. Schweizerbart’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung 2007 Optically active substances and their contributions to the underwater light climate in Lake Taihu, a large shallow lake in China 1 2 1 1, 3 4 Yunlin Zhang , Bing Zhang , Ronghua Ma , Shen Feng and Chengfeng Le With 4 fi gures and 1 table Abstract: There are few data sets on optically active substances and optical conditions to partition the relative contribution of every substance on light attenuation in a lake. To address this need, underwater photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), optical parameters and concentrations of three optically active substances, tripton (non- phytoplankton particulate matter), chlorophyll-a (Chl-a), chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) were measured at 67 sites in Lake Taihu, a large shallow lake in China in October 2004. The spatial variation of optically active substances and their relative contributions to the underwater light climate were determined. The PAR diffuse attenuation coeffi cient Kd(PAR) at different sites varied between 0.87 and 12.43 m–1 , with a mean of 4.42 m–1 . Sig- nifi cant spatial differences were found for optically active substances and PAR attenuation, with low concentrations and weak light attenuation in macrophyte-dominated bays such as East Lake Taihu, Xukou Bay and Gongshan Bay, and high concentrations and strong light attenuation in the open water and algae-dominated areas such as t