Influence of internal seiche dynamics on vertical movement of fish

1. Internal seiches are common in stratified lakes, with significant effects on stratification patterns, hydrodynamics and vertical nutrient transport. In particular, seiche can change the vertical distribution of the thermocline and the cold hypolimnetic and warm epilimnetic water masses by several meters on a timescale of a few hours. The results are rapid and strong changes in temperature profiles and oxygen availability that can have profound effects on vagrant and sessile organisms. Internal seiche dynamics could therefore affect fish communities directly through physiological stress and elevated mortality, and indirectly through prey distribution. 2. The aim of this study was to analyze the effects of internal seiche dynamics on lacustrine fish behaviour, and to characterize fish reaction patterns, with the main focus on vertical movement of fish in the vicinity of a shifting thermocline, and avoidance of cold hypolimnetic water. 3. The analysis was based on acoustic telemetry data from Lake Milada, a post-mining lake in the Czech Republic, with a total of 55 tracked individuals of four species: northern pike (Esox lucius), wels catfish (Silurus glanis), tench (Tinca tinca) and rudd (Scardinius erythropthalmus). 4. The effects of seiche dynamics on the four species studied were weak but significant during the day, but only on rudd during the night. Upward seiche produced stronger reactions in fish than downward seiche, and the effects were manifested only during the strongest seiche events. 5. Thermocline shifting during seiche events may induce a transient reduction in habitat for seiche-reacting species, thus potentially affecting predation and other inter- and intra-specific interactions, and probably affecting fish community dynamics.

Energetics of internal solitary waves in a background sheared current

The energetics of internal waves in the presence of a background sheared current is explored via numerical simulations for four different situations based on oceanographic conditions: the nonlinear interaction of two internal solitary waves; an internal solitary wave shoaling through a turning point; internal solitary wave reflection from a sloping boundary and a deep-water internal seiche trapped in a deep basin. In the simulations with variable water depth using the Boussinesq approximation the combination of a background sheared current, bathymetry and a rigid lid results in a change in the total energy of the system due to the work done by a pressure change that is established across the domain. A final simulation of the deep-water internal seiche in which the Boussinesq approximation is not invoked and a diffuse air-water interface is added to the system results in the energy remaining constant because the generation of surface waves prevents the establishment of a net pressure increase across the domain. The difference in the perturbation energy in the Boussinesq and non-Boussinesq simulations is accounted for by the surface waves.