Organic Matter and Its Transformation Rates in Spawning and Fattening Lakes in Kamchatka

The concentration of dissolved and particulate organic matter (OM) in Lakes Kuril'skoe and Azabach'e is shown to depend on the rate of its production by phytoplankton (and by macrophytes in Lake Azabach'e) and on the amount of allochthonous OM delivered by rivers. The rate of OM transformation in the production–destruction cycle and the regeneration of phosphates were evaluated based on the activities of redox enzymes of the electron-transport system and the hydrolytic enzymes of alkaline phosphatase and protease. The intense assimilation of allochthonous OM in lake ecosystems was found to take place due to active hydrolytic disintegration of the arriving OM.