Lake Urmia (or Ormiyeh) is one of the largest hypersaline lakes in …

• Abstract
• Background
• Geology
• Sediments
• Hydrology
• The basin
• Morphometry
• Causeway project
• Hydrochemistry
• Main ions
• Exploitation
• Artemia biology
• Bisexual vs. parthenogenetic Artemia
• Ecology
• Phytoplankton
• Bacteriology
• Conservation and management
• Acknowledgements
• References
• Figures

Compared to other aspects of brine shrimp biology, ecological studies on Artemia are relatively few in number [46], and that is especially the case for Urmia Lake. The brine shrimp population in Urmia Lake exhibits seasonal fluctuations that are similar to those reported for the Great Salt Lake [8] but differ in significant ways. Thus, hatching of cysts in the Great Salt Lake may occur as early as February when grazing pressure prevents the phytoplankton from reaching actual blooming densities in late Spring as observed in other saline habitats [6]. Adult Artemia densities in Urmia Lake (3 adult. L^-1) [6] in July 1994-January 1996 can be compared to the values reported for Great Salt Lake (4 adults. L^-1 in July) [63] and 20 and 10 L^-1 for June and July, respectively [64] and 10–20 L^-1 in late spring [65], respectively. These low densities correlate well with low algal biomass, and agree with the findings of [66] that in the Great Salt Lake the highest Artemia densities coincide with the highest food concentrations, clearly illustrating the impact of food availability on the growth and reproduction of Artemia.