Does the conversion of organic compounds to inorganic nutrients favor the growth of algae due to the carbon:nutrient ratio found in organic matter such as plant detritus etc?
plantbrain said:No.
Where large plant biomass exists, there is no correlation between between nutrients in the water and algae presence.
That said, seasonally, there can be correlation in northern/far southern lakes/rivers etc, when the plants die off in the Fall, or prior to their seasonal new growth in the spring. But this precludes having any plants, which is not representative.
Let's take another case: aquatic weed control. Something not popular in Europe/UK etc.
Very popular here in the USA. We actually go out and kill aquatic weeds.
A lake is infested with say Hydrilla. They call me out for treatment options. I suggest Copper sulfate initially, then followed a couple weeks later with Fluridone herbicide(Copper is cheap, Fluridone is $$$). The copper will kill off the algae on the plants. Then later, we add the fluridone. This is a slow acting herbicide that is 1000X less toxic than caffeine, and we only need parts per BILLION.
This takes roughly 8 to 20 weeks to slowly kill the plants. If I chose Diquat, a fast acting herbicide, it would kill the plants in 3-5 days. But then all this dead organic matter would be produced and bacteria would bloom.
When this happens the O2 levels will drop near zero, this leads to a lake full of dead fish floating up to the top and a mad lake owner.
They say the herbicide was TOXIC AND DEADLY. But it's not the herbicide that's toxic, it was the environmental conditions that killed off the biomass way to fast.
End result using diquat: huge algae bloom/dead fish
End result of the Fluridone: slow milder algae bloom/happy fish
In both cases, if you remove the plants, you get pea soup.
If you add ferts to the lakes with plants, you get more aquatic weed growth.
Many people want to remove the weeds and have nice clear water......... then only get something worse with the pea soup algae after killing off the weeds. All that lawn fertilizer and bug spray they use right next to the lake does not help one bit either.
Tom that is really funny, talk about "shoot the messenger", on the bright side it should keep you in a job for life.A lake is infested with say Hydrilla. They call me out for treatment options. I suggest Copper sulfate initially, then followed a couple weeks later with Fluridone herbicide(Copper is cheap, Fluridone is $$$). The copper will kill off the algae on the plants. Then later, we add the fluridone. This is a slow acting herbicide that is 1000X less toxic than caffeine, and we only need parts per BILLION. This takes roughly 8 to 20 weeks to slowly kill the plants. If I chose Diquat, a fast acting herbicide, it would kill the plants in 3-5 days. But then all this dead organic matter would be produced and bacteria would bloom. When this happens the O2 levels will drop near zero, this leads to a lake full of dead fish floating up to the top and a mad lake owner.......Many people want to remove the weeds and have nice clear water......... then only get something worse with the pea soup algae after killing off the weeds. All that lawn fertilizer and bug spray they use right next to the lake does not help one bit either.