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Lake ecosystems can be divided into zones. One common system divides lakes into three zones. The first, the littoral zone, is the shallow zone near the shore. [5] This is where rooted wetland plants occur. The offshore is divided into two further zones, an open water zone and a deep water zone.
The littoral zone, also called litoral or nearshore, is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. [1] In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely inundated), to coastal areas that are permanently submerged — known as the foreshore — and the terms are often used interchangeably.
A salt lake, also known as a saline lake or brine lake, is an inland body of water situated in an arid or semiarid region, with no outlet to the sea, containing a high concentration of dissolved neutral salts (principally sodium chloride). Examples include the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and the Dead Sea in southwestern Asia. [36] [52]
Lake stratification is the tendency of lakes to form separate and distinct thermal layers during warm weather. Typically stratified lakes show three distinct layers: the epilimnion, comprising the top warm layer; the thermocline (or metalimnion), the middle layer, whose depth may change throughout the day; and the colder hypolimnion, extending to the floor of the lake.
Unlike the profundal zone, the limnetic zone is the layer that receives sufficient sunlight, allowing for photosynthesis. [4] For this reason, it is often simply referred to as the photic zone. The limnetic zone is the most photosynthetically-active zone of a lake since it is the primary habitat for planktonic species. [5]
The benthic zone consists of substrates below water where many invertebrates live. The intertidal zone is the area between high and low tides. Other near-shore (neritic) zones can include mudflats, seagrass meadows, mangroves, rocky intertidal systems, salt marshes, coral reefs, lagoons.
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In addition, some lakes become seasonally stratified. Ponds and pools have two regions: the pelagic open water zone, and the benthic zone, which comprises the bottom and shore regions. Since lakes have deep bottom regions not exposed to light, these systems have an additional zone, the profundal. [11]