Work, K. A. South Florida Water Management District, Havens, K.
A. South Florida Water Management District, East, T. South
Florida Water Management District, Sharfstein, B. South Florida
Water Management District,  Lake Okeechobee is a large
subtropical lake with hydrologically distinct pelagic and
littoral zones. Emergent macrophytes reduce water flow through
the littoral zone, creating a habitat that differs physically
and chemically from the pelagia. The large fetch, shallow depth,
and predominance of mud sediments of the pelagic zone results in
a high suspended sediment load and low light transmission,
whereas the littoral zone is much clearer. Large cyanobacteria
often dominate the pelagic phytoplankton assemblage and create a
high size overlap with the small zooplankton that usually are
dominant. We are testing the hypothesis that bacterial carbon
constitutes a higher proportion of total carbon flux to
zooplankton in Lake Okeechobee than in many temperate lakes and
that this pattern is most pronounced i