ABSTRACT.Polyurethane substrates were anchored near the surface of 14 lakes in the northern tip of the lower peninsula of Michigan. I wo substrates were removed from each take and taken to the laboratory after 1, 3, 6, 15, and 21 days of exposure. At the laboratory, one substrate was used for determining the number of species of diatoms and the other for protozoa. A cluster analysis of the matrix of Jaccard's coefficients for all diatom samples from all lakes showed that virtually all samples from any given lake consistently clustered together. This indicates that, with respect to species occurrence, distinct and compositionally stable diatom assemblages formed on the substrates in fewer than 21 days. Analysis of all protozoan samples from all lakes did not show such clustering, however, and the correspondence of clusters for protozoan and diatom communities for the 14 lakes was not particularly good. This suggests that the link between the two groups at the species level is not particularly strong during the early phases of artificial substrate colonization.