What is the difference between an oligotrophic and eutrophic environment?

Answer 1

Oligotrophic refers generally to ecosystems which have very little nutrients to sustain life. These can be very salty lakes or soils with a very low nitrogen content.
An oligotrophic lake is that with plenty of oxygen but deficient of nutrients for plant growth.

Answer 2

The environment is a lake or a pond.

Oligotrophic means full of lots of oxygen and less nutrients, since the nutrients are consumed by Diatom Algae and diatoms by zooplankton and fish.

Eutrophic means having lots of mineral and organic nutrients. This means it has a lot of plants and algae and less amount of Diatoms. Other algae are not consumed by fish, so they die and decompose, so there is very little oxygen in the water and other organic life (fish and insects) dies.

An oligotrophic lake poor in nutrient maybe high in nitrogen but poor in phosphorous.

An eutrophic lake has high nutrient influx especially high in phosphorous.

Deep lakes are generally oligotrophic and shallow ones eutrophic.

Answer 3

An oligotrophic environment is low in nutrients, resulting in low productivity and limited plant growth. Conversely, a eutrophic environment is rich in nutrients, leading to high productivity and increased plant growth. Eutrophic environments can suffer from issues like algal blooms due to excessive nutrient levels.