BACTERIA-CHLOROPHYLL RELATIONSHIPS IN ETHIOPIAN LAKES OF VARYING SALINITY - ARE SODA LAKES DIFFERENT

Some soda lakes in East Africa are extreme with respect to their high abundance of bacteria and phytoplankton. We used regression analysis o f 52 samples from 18 lakes in Ethiopia to demonstrate that soda lakes conform to a different relationship between bacterial abundance and ph ytoplankton biomass. The exponent of the power function relating bacte ria and chlorophyll is much steeper for saline lakes, although still l ess than one. This may reflect that bacteria in eutrophic soda lakes a re more substrate limited, and less controlled by grazers.