The role of littoral habitats in lake metabolism has been underrated, especially in humic lakes, based on an assumption of low benthic primary production ( PP ) due to low light penetration into water. This assumption has been challenged by recent recognition of littoral epiphyton dominance of whole‐lake PP in a small highly humic lake and of epiphyton as an important basal food source for humic lake biota. However, as these s...

We quantified the potential nutritional contribution of benthic mats to pelagic consumers in tundra ponds using three approaches. (1) We compared benthic and pelagic habitats based on their algal biomass and community composition and assessed the dietary quality in terms of fatty acid (FA) concentrations in both habitats. The algal community compositions differed significantly between habitats. Both benthic and pelagic habitat...