• Project state

  Completed

• Type of project

  Competitive project

• Begin date

  01 September 2018

• End date

  31 December 2021

The widespread measurement of primary productivity in lakes is currently hampered by several problems. A major obstacle is that the mathematical procedures used to calculate production from field data is time-consuming and complex, as there is no publicly- available software that automate it. A second issue is that it is difficult to obtain Chl a data measured with adequate temporal resolution and accuracy. Monitoring programs often measure chlorophyll with monthly frequency, but our experience indicates that this is insufficient to capture the high temporal variability of phytoplankton biomass, especially during the vegetative season. Our project aims to address these problems by: (1) developing a user-friendly, open-source software that automates the calculation of primary production from monitoring data, and (2) developing a routine for the frequent measure and calibration of Chl a.