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the load is atmospheric deposition; and, smoke from homes heated with wood burning <br />stoves and from slash burning may be the primary source of labile phosphorus <br />measured in bulk precipitation samples. In 1983 a lakewide bloom of the noxious <br />bluegreen alga Anabaena flos-aqua occurred for the first time in Flathead Lake since <br />records began in 1902. The bloom was not severe and it has not reoccurred, but it did <br />suggest that conditions in the lake were near a threshold beyond which major changes <br />in the autotrophic community of the lake might be expected. Recent nutrient bioassays <br />and analyses of long-term mass balance data have supported this inference (Stanford <br />et al. 1983, 1990). <br />Food Web Manipulation <br />Since the turn of the century, 17 fish and 2 crustacean species have been <br />purposefully introduced into the Flathead catchment, primarily by fishery managers. <br />Most fishes and both crustaceans established viable populations and gradually <br />immigrated widely within the catchment. Today only a very few lakes in Glacier <br />National Park have entirely native food webs, owing to remote localities and presence <br />of cascades, falls or other migration barriers that prevented invasion by nonnative <br />species from waters downstream. <br />These introductions had major impacts on native populations and dramatically <br />restructured food webs in the lakes and streams throughout the catchment. Often <br />effects cascaded through the food webs in ways that were unanticipated and <br />sometimes involved both terrestrial and aquatic species. <br />For example, the kokanee salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) fishery has undergone <br />extreme fluctuations since they were introduced into Flathead Lake in 1916. Kokanee <br />population expanded rapidly after introduction and gradually replaced the native <br />cutthroat trout as the dominant planktivore. Adfluvial kokanee from Flathead Lake <br />spawned primarily in the outlet of McDonald Lake in Glacier National Park (Figure 3), <br />where they attracted large numbers of migratory bald eagles (Haliaetus <br />leucocephalus). When the kokanee spawners were abundant (> 150,000), so were <br />eagles (> 700). In 1981, the nonnative crustacean Mysis relicta immigrated to Flathead <br />Lake from intentional plants made in lakes upstream. Within 6 years numbers <br />exceeded 125 m-2. <br />Mysis feed on zooplankton near the lake surface at night and rest on the lake <br />bottom during the day. Mysis have reduced zooplankton biomass in the lake by almost <br />an order of magnitude. Kokanee are also dependent on zooplankton, but they prefer to <br />stay near the lake surface, perhaps to avoid predation by piscivorous lake trout <br />(Salvelinus namaycush, a nonnative species) and native bull charr. Thus, Mysis <br />13