Lakes are ‘a little world within itself, a microcosm within which all the elemental forces are at work and the play of life goes on in full, but on so small a scale as to bring it easily within the mental grasp’ (Forbes, 1887). A microcosm is an isolated system, independent from the wider environment. This thinking has persisted to this day in some fields (Arlinghaus et al., 2008).
The study of limnology has diversified over time, encompassing new branches of science. The 20th century saw metrology, chemistry and hydraulics brought into the field (Strom, 1929; Arlinghaus et al., 2008). Many of the views that were once held are changing. The notion that lakes are driven by small scale local processes is being challenged by larger scale changes such as global fluctuations in climate. Systems science is showing that lakes are conceptually more complex than once thought. The nature of how we approach lakes has changed. Is a microcosm approach still relevant?
SMIDAN 