Summary Freshwater cyanobacteria are known for their ability to produce bioactive compounds, some of which have been described as allelochemicals. Using a combined approach of co‐cultures and analyses of metabolic profiles, we investigated chemically mediated interactions between two cyanobacterial strains, Microcystis aeruginosa PCC 7806 and Planktothrix agardhii PCC 7805. More precisely, we evaluated changes in growth, morph...

Summary The cyanobacteria Microcystis proliferate in freshwater ecosystems and produce bioactive compounds including the harmful toxins microcystins ( MC ). These secondary metabolites play an important role in shaping community composition through biotic interactions although their role and mode of regulation are poorly understood. As natural cyanobacterial populations include producing and non‐producing strains, we tested if...

Turbulence can regulate phytoplankton community structure in aquatic ecosystems by affecting sedimentation and nutrient acquisition. In rivers, nutrient concentrations are often high enough to sustain phytoplankton growth without limitation. Hence, turbulence mainly acts on phytoplankton by controlling its vertical position in such ecosystems. We conducted a laboratory experiment to see if the response of phytoplankton to turb...

Ecology Letters (2010) 13: 776–791 Abstract Environmental genomics and genome‐wide expression approaches deal with large‐scale sequence‐based information obtained from environmental samples, at organismal, population or community levels. To date, environmental genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics are arguably the most powerful approaches to discover completely novel ecological functions and to link organismal capabilities,...

The impact of climate change on hydrology and water resources is one of the most critical issues facing the world in the next few decades. In particular, there is a need to quantify the risks associated with maintaining the security of resource quantity and quality, and to assess the effectiveness of potential management strategies. In this paper, we assess the impacts of climate variability and change on one aspect of river h...