After 60 years of receiving treated sewage effluent from the city
of Lahti, Lake Vesijärvi had become very eutrophic. Diversion of the
effluent in 1976 resulted in a slow recovery of the water quality. In
1989–93, biomanipulation removed 380 kg of coarse fish per hectare
from Enonselkä, the most polluted basin of the lake. Since then
cyanobacterial blooms have decreased and water transparency has
increased. Paleolimnological analysis of deep water sediments was used
to
reconstruct the changes in the diatom community, with varved
sediment structure providing a year-by-year chronology. During the
biomanipulation period the following diatom species increased in
Enonselkä: Asterionella formosa, Fragilaria crotonensis,
Stephanodiscus heterostylus and Tabellaria spp.
In contrast, diatom species commonly
considered to be indicators of eutrophication, such as Aulacoseira
islandica, Diatoma elongatum and Stephanodiscus
parvus, have decreased
since the end of the 1980s reflecting the recovery of the
Enonselkä basin. The changes in the diatom plankton recorded in the
less
polluted basin of Laitialanselkä were much less marked
than those recorded from the sediments of the Enonselkä basin. In
1990 a diatom
species, Actinocyclus normanii f. subsalsa,
appeared for the first time in Lake Vesijärvi and since then
it has been one of the dominant
diatoms in the plankton of the Enonselkä basin. Two
years later it was also present in small numbers in the plankton of
Laitialanselkä, the
least polluted basin of the lake. The appearance of A. normanii
f. subsalsa was concomitant with the dredging of the boat harbour
of Lahti
city in the late summer of 1990. It was therefore apparently not
directly affected by biomanipulation but benefited indirectly from the
collapse of cyanobacterial populations that led to improved light
and nutrient availability in the water column.