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Nostocales form thick-walled, resting cells (akinetes) for overwintering in lake sediments of Central Europe. The pelagic Nostocales population recruits after the germination of akinetes, which mainly takes place in the spring with increasing temperatures and light intensities. The study aimed to i) characterize the sediment surfaces inhabited by viable akinetes that potentially contribute to the formation of a pelagic population, and ii) estimate the inoculum size of the available sedimentary akinete pool. We investigated the horizontal distribution of akinetes in sediments and the seasonal course of light and temperature in two deep dimictic lakes (Lake Stechlinsee, max. depth 69 m and Lake Scharmützelsee, max. depth 29.5 m; NE Germany). The akinete pool was calculated and the potential inoculum was estimated using assumed light and temperature data for akinete germination. The akinete abundance in sediments depended on the basin morphometry and increased with water depth. Only a small proportion of the viable akinete pool in shallow water areas contributed as inoculum to pelagic population. The potential inoculum size in Lake Scharmützelsee was larger than in Lake Stechlinsee.
The ability to fix molecular nitrogen is considered to be a competitive advantage of Nostocales to overcome periods of nitrogen shortage but it is unclear to what extend these cyanobacteria import nitrogen into freshwaters and if they are able to compensate the efforts of reducing anthropogenic nitrogen input.
We studied nitrogen fixation, cyanobacterial biovolume and species composition and abiotic parameters in two polymictic lakes (Germany) over three years. Although Nostocales were present from April to November N2-fixation was found only from June/July to September. In the summer months, it amounted up to 40 mgN m-²d-¹ or up to 500 mgN m-²d-¹ resulting in rather low annual N-inputs between 0.1 and 8 gN m-²a-¹. We found a high variation in N2-fixation rates between the two lakes and the years, which could neither be explained by total Nostocales biovolume nor heterocyte numbers. N2-fixation rates measured in the field will be analyzed on Nostocales species level, be compared to those of laboratory cultures and be discussed in the context of possible phosphorus or light limitation of Nostocales.