View article

Lake biomanipulation theory (Shapiro and Wright 1984) is based on the prediction that increased piscivore abundance will result in decreased planktivore abundance, increased zooplankton abundance, and increased zooplankton grazing pressure leading to reductions in phytoplankton abundance and improved water clarity. Biomanipulation is now at a stage of becoming ensconced as a lake management tool and accepted irrefutably in the generalist literature (eg Carpenter et al. 1985; Carpenter and Kitchell 1988; Townsend 1988; Int. Jt. Comm. 1988), the literature dealing with nonaquatic communities (Spiller and Schoener 1990) and the press (Stevens 1990). Once enthroned, a theory becomes envisioned as unassailable and definitive dogma (Wittgenstein cited by Popper 1968) and its speculations can be elevated to the status of ecological laws merely by the passage of time (McIntosh 1980; Loehle 1987 …