To understand the persistence of algal blooms, it is important to understand whether toxic cyanobacteria appearance in the lake is limited by light availability. Utah Lake is a uniquely shallow lake, but high turbidity severely limits light penetration to lower depths of the lake. Presence of cyanobacteria can be determined by identifying a change in pH in the lake characteristic to the oxygenic photosynthesis this bacterium uniquely performs.
We are developing an experiment to examine the cyanobacteria concentration at varying depths of the lake. This experiment will be conducted this summer and help us identify how well algae grows at varying light levels so that we can determine whether cyanobacteria growth is light limited or not.