Eutrophication history of Lake Arendsee (Germany)1

At the maximum depth of Lake Arendsee (49.5 m) only a thanatocenosis could be found in a freeze core with a length of 52 cm. According to varve-counting, the fauna changed between 1960 and 1972, characteristic of mesotrophic to eutrophic state. The cause for eutrophication could be correlated with the sewage loading of the town of Arendsee and the drainage of Lake Fauler See into Lake Arendsee. Lake Arendsee did not yet recover from the loading because of the long retention time of 114 years. The investigation of the living meio- and macrobenthos of Lake Arendsee shows that the lower profundal is not colonized.