The LakeLab is a large-scale experimental infrastructure including 24 enclosures installed 2010-2011, in Lake Stechlin in close vicinity of the laboratories of the Department of Plankton and Microbial Ecology, IGB, Stechlin, Brandenburg, NE Germany. The LakeLab is a tool to study effects of environmental change including multiple stressors and disturbance on lake food webs under near-real conditions still allowing for replication or gradient design. Four profiling sensor system are installed at the LakeLab to collect high-frequency long-term biogeochemical data of Lake Stechlin (south bay, 20 m depth) since 2012. The LakeLab platform has also been used for many projects benefitting from power (24VDC and 230/380VAC) and WiFi when conducting various sampling campaigns in Lake Stechlin. The platform is also ideal for testing of new instriment and scientific approaches ranging from ground-truthing for Remote Sensing to automatic vertical profiling of plankton.
Experiments that have been conducted at the LakeLab last usually 1-3 months and are briefly desribed below, and the according data collection are listed thereafter. Measured parameters include typically sensor-based high frequency profiler data of temperature, O2, Conductivity/Redox potential, pH, pigments (Chlorophyll-a, Phycocyanin and Phycoerytrhrin), light (PAR), while nutrients, CNP, ions and water colour/turbidity, extracted pigments (HPLC) are typically analysed in the nearby laboratories of the Department of Plankton and Microbial Ecology, IGB Stechlin. Further data acquisition depends of the respective projects and experiments, and often include quantification of zooplankton, microzooplankton, phytoplankton, bacteria and molecular analyses, see below.
Within the Leibniz SAW project “TemBi” a large-scale enclosure experiment was conducted in summer 2014 to study the effects of an intensive summer storm and deep mixing on the plankton community and their functions (TemBi-2014 LakeLab Experiment).
Within the EU project “MARS - Management of Aquatic Ecosystems and Water Resource under Multiple Stress” a combined eutrophication and brouning experiment was condicted in the LakeLab in summer/fall 2015 (MARS-2015 LakeLab Experiment).
In the fame of the SAW Project “ILES - Illuminating Lake Ecosystems”, two LakeLab experiments were conducted, one in summer 2016 on the effect of skyglow on zooplankton DVM and ecosystem functions (ILES-2016 LakeLab Experiment), and the other one in summer 2018 on the combined impact of skyglow and browning (ILES-2018 LakeLab Experiment).
The IGB Seed Money Project “No Ice No FUN - First winter experiment in the LakeLab” was a pilot experiment on winter ice coverage and ice quality performed in winter 2018 in the LakeLab (ICE-2018 LakeLab Experiment).
Within the Leibniz SAW Project “CONNECT - Connectivity and Synchronisation of Aquatic Ecosystems in Space and Time” a LakeLab experiment on the effects of water retention time in connected lake chains on plankton dynamics was performed in summer 2019 (CONNECT-2019 LakeLab Experiment).
In the frame of the EU INFRAIA project “AQUACOSM - Network of Leading European AQUAtic MesoCOSM Facilities Connecting Mountains to Oceans from the Arctic to the Mediterranean” an experiment of extreme events including endpoints of eutrophication andbrouning was conducted in summer 2021 (JOMEX-CONNECT-2021 LakeLab Experiment).
Within the EU INFRAIA project “AQUACOSM-plus - Network of Leading Ecosystem Scale Experimental AQUAtic MesoCOSM Facilities Connecting Rivers, Lakes, Estuaries and Oceans in Europe and beyond” two experiments on fish dessity effects on plankton food webs were conducted in spring 2013 (SPRING-FISH-2023 LakeLab Experiment) and in summer 2023 (SUMMER-FISH-2023 LakeLab Experiment).
The project “Submerged Aquatic Vegetation Shifts in Oligo-mesotrophic Lakes” involved an experiment on incubations of different macrophytes at variuos depths and nutrient levels in the LakeLab in summer 2024 (MACRO-2024 LakeLab Experiment).
Within the umbrella project “A Paradigm Shift for Predictions of Freshwater Harmful Cyanobacteria Blooms” a large-scale enclosure experiment was conducted in summer 2025 to study the effects of a summer storm/deep mixing event on the pelagic community and funtioning with focus on the cyanobacteria Planktothrix rubescense (CyanoIBM-2025-DE LakeLab Experiment).
Finally, since 2012 the LakeLab operates four automatic profiler systems attached to the LakeLab gathering sensor-based, high-frequency data in the south bay of Lake Stechlin (Long Term-High Frequency Profiler L01 L02 L03 L04).