P. Niederhauser et F. Schanz, COMPARISON OF DIATOM COMMUNITIES IN REMOTE HIGH-MOUNTAIN LAKES USING INDEX-B AND CLUSTER-ANALYSIS, Hydrobiologia, 274(1-3), 1994, pp. 115-120
Six remote high-mountain lakes in SE Switzerland were characterized on
the basis of their water chemistry and the composition of their epili
thic diatom communities. The index B (Renberg & Hellberg, 1982), calcu
lated by summarizing the relative frequencies of occurrence in all fiv
e pH classes defined by Hustedt (1938/39), was found to be well correl
ated with pH values measured from August to October (5.8 to 7.0). Four
lakes with pH values from 6.3 to 6.6 could not be distinguished from
one another by means of the index B despite some differences in their
physical, chemical and biological characteristics. However, it was pos
sible to separate them by cluster analysis using the relative frequenc
ies of the diatom species. We conclude that much ecological informatio
n is lost when applying the pH classification of Hustedt (1938/39).