Lake Fondi ( it, Lago di Fondi, la, Lacus Fundanus, Lacus Amyclanus) is a brackish

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

about to the southeast of Rome in the

Province of Latina The Province of Latina ( it, Provincia di Latina) is an area of local government at the level of province in the Republic of Italy. It is one of five provinces that form the region of Lazio. The provincial capital is the city of Latina. It is bo ...

Lazio it, Laziale , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, in the region called Sud or "South" Pontino, the western end of which is the Piana di Fondi, "Plain of Fondi". The plain is a basin below the arc of the

Monti Ausoni The Monti Ausoni or Ausoni Mountains constitute a mountain range in southern Lazio, in central Italy. It is part of the Antiappennini, a group running from the Apennines chain to the Tyrrhenian Sea. They are bounded to the north by the Monti L ...

and the Monti Lepini. The lake forms naturally at the west end of the basin in a depression constantly filling with spring water exuding from the base of the mountains, which are a heavily cracked and faulted limestone karst absorbent of most rainfall. In addition to the flows from springs, a number of canals have been constructed from regions of the marsh below sea level to drain water from the marsh into the lake. Pumping stations are required to lift the water into the canals. Before the marsh was reclaimed the lake was part of it. Canals at either end of the lake connect it to the

Tyrrhenian Sea The Tyrrhenian Sea (; it, Mar Tirreno , french: Mer Tyrrhénienne , sc, Mare Tirrenu, co, Mari Tirrenu, scn, Mari Tirrenu, nap, Mare Tirreno) is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy. It is named for the Tyrrhenian pe ...

Geology

All the coastal lagoons of Lazio formed in the same way: an offshore

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58graben created by extensional forces in NE and SW directions behind a karst of

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretace ...

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

gradually filled by peaty and fluvial deposition in the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

. A barrier fringe of sand developed offshore enclosing first a lagoon, then a coastal marsh. The remnant chain of lagoons are brackish due to heavy inflow of fresh water from springs at the base of the porous Volscian Mountains and the intrusion of salt water from the marsh, much of which is still below sea level. The positions of the lakes are determined by local elevations and equilibrium between inflow and outflow. In the last few centuries ''bonifica'' or "restoration", of the marshland to produce agricultural land, and associated control of the water channels, have stabilized the lakes as landforms.

Ecology

According to the

Water Framework Directive The Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC is an EU directive which commits European Union member states to achieve good qualitative and quantitative status of all water bodies (including marine waters up to one nautical mile from shore) by 2015. ...

of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

the lagoons of Lazio are transitional waters, "partly saline" but "influenced by freshwater flows." Although the geology is the same in this case the ecology is far from it. Transitional waters tend to be

biodiverse Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic ('' genetic variability''), species ('' species diversity''), and ecosystem ('' ecosystem diversity'') ...

; each case is a "habitat island" due to variability of the environmental, or

abiotic In biology and ecology, abiotic components or abiotic factors are non-living chemical and physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems. Abiotic factors and the phenomena associated with them under ...

, factors from locality to locality. The ecotomes, or transitional communities created, are unique. In 2008 a group of scientists from the

University of Salento The University of Salento ( it, Università del Salento, called until 2007 ''Università degli Studi di Lecce'') is a university located in Lecce, Italy. It was founded in 1955 by Giuseppe Codacci Pisanelli. The university of Salento commenced act ...

published a study of biodiversity in 26 Italian lagoons. They compared "the taxonomic composition of benthic macro-invertebrate guilds" in the lakes, where a guild is a group of

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...

that subsist in the same way. The 944 taxa included 343

families Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Ideal ...

. Any two lakes can be given a percentage similarity based on the number of taxa they contain in common. Using the methods of

cladistics Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups (" clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived cha ...

the investigators constructed a

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ...

of lagoons, grouping them by similarity. The "Central Tyrrhenian Lagoons;" that is, those of coastal

, are divided into two groups: Lake Caprolace with Lake Fusaro, and Lake Fondi, Lake Lungo, Lake Sabaudia, Lake Monaci and Lake Fogliano. Of the second group, Fondi and Lungo, both of the South Pontino, were most like each other. The other lakes of that group are all of Agro Pontino. All similarities were considered low; only two lagoons overall shared more than 50% of the families. In essence, each lagoon contains its own characteristic species, with a slight similarity for geographic proximity.

Notes

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fondi Lakes of Lazio

Geology

Ecology

See also

Notes

References

External links