UC Irvine

Runoff containing road salt (sodium chloride, NaCl) causes the salinization of inland freshwaters, with potentially severe impacts on aquatic species. We performed a mesocosm experiment to test the effects of salinization on plankton community structure in an oligotrophic mountain lake with a limited history of elevated salt concentrations. We exposed plankton communities to a gradient of 30 salt concentrations ranging from 1 to 2900 Cl− mg L−1 for 6 weeks. Adding salt increased zooplankton biomass at concentrations < 500 mg Cl− L−1 while reducing phytoplankton biomass. Zooplankton biomass declined precipitously at higher concentrations, with phytoplankton biomass showing a mirror image increase. The initial increase in zooplankton biomass with salt addition suggests that zooplankton are salt-limited at low ionic concentrations. Additionally, the inverse response of zooplankton and phytoplankton suggests that salinity mainly affects phytoplankton biomass via changes in top-down regulation by grazers.