The classic description of a coloured lake implies low productivity (Nauman 1921; cited in Jones 1922). Wetzel (1975) initially classified dystrophic lakes as oligotrophic, but later stated that dystrophy represents a subset of trophic continuum, from oligotrophy to eutrophy, rather than a parallel concept (Wetzel 2001). Other more recent studies have demonstrated that many dystrophic lakes are mesotrophic or even eutrophic (Jones 1992, Keskitalo and Eloranta 1999). Furthermore, the pH of their water can range between 4.1 and 8.0 (Keskitalo and Eloranta 1999), and it is clear that this property should be treated as an additional factor affecting their trophic state. Our own findings from humic acidic lakes of different trophic states and from one posthumic lake (originally humic, now eutrophic with pH = 7), together with data from the literature describing about 40 brown-water lakes, can be used to verify general statements concerning microbial ecology paradigms for humic waters: 1) the bacterial to phytoplankton biomass ratio is generally high and increases with lake water colour; 2) there is a positive relationship between bacterial biomass and the concentration of organic matter expressed in dissolved organic carbon units and as water colour; 3) bacterial production is generally higher than primary production; 4) there is a good correlation between bacterial production and humic matter content; 5) the pH of the water/sediments can modify these relationships by accelerating the rates between the variables mentioned above in neutral pH and/or limiting them in low pH. In this review we show that these statements are not always confirmed by detailed analyses of the available data, suggesting that in addition to the concentration of humic matter, the lake productivity, expressed as chlorophyll a and primary production, also influences the ratios between the compared variables. We also demonstrate that despite being weaker, the relationships between phytoplankton-related variables and bacterial abundance and production in low pH lakes are similar to those in circum-neutral humic waters. In addition, we show that the conversion factors and the proportion of active bacterial cells greatly influence all of the aforementioned relationships.
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