HEAD OF DEPARTMENT:  Péter Bíró, Ordinary member of HAS

A basic task of the team is the monitoring of the zooplankton and littoral invertebrate communities in several different standard sampling sites of Lake Balaton. This activity serves the continuous enlargement of the long term datasets concerning to the species composition, individual density, biomass and production of the zooplankton and macroinvertebrates dvelling the littoral zone. Collection of these data started in the early 1930`s making possible the analyses of the direct and indirect impacts of the anthropogenous eutrophycation, the long term fluctuation of the water lewel and the possible climate change on the invertebrate communities. The efficiency of the trophyc relationships between the phytoplankton – zooplankton, and macroinvertebrates – suspended material has been intensively studied in the frame of different research projects.

Main task of the research team is to investigate fish and macroinvertebrates of Lake Balaton and its inflowing waters. Members of the team study community structure, population dynamics, growth, and feeding of fish in both habitats. A special emphasis is given to studies on ontogenetic diet patterns, trophic relationships and intra- and interspecific food resource partitioning in fish. Objectives of the team include examination of long term abundance pattern, growth, survival and feeding habits of age-0 fish. In small streams of Lake Balaton's catchment area the team studies community structure, habitat preference and migration of fish. Of aquatic macroinvertebrates the team currently focuses on Chironomidae and carries out faunistical, production biological and population dynamical studies.

One of the main topics of the research group is survey structure and quantification of fish population in shallow water bodies of different trophy using hydroacoustics. The aim of the bioacoustic reearch is to establish ecological rehabilitation of eutrophic waters. As a first step toward ecological restoration, the research group applies the hydroacoustics as a new technique first time in Hungary aiming at measuring the population dynamics, the structure of fish communities, size frequeny distribution, stock abundance and biomass. For characterisation of fish populations, parallel with the hydroacoustics multimesh gillnet surveys are carried out. The group applies bioacoustic technique at carrying out biomanipulation as a new management tool in restoration of shallow eutrophic water bodies. The biomanipulation is a biological manipulation using fish communities to alter the food web structure (fishery, stocking of predatory fish etc) with the aim to improve water quality of shallow ecosystems.