Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Gregersen, Rose
• Howarth, Jamie D.
• Atalah, Javier
• Pearman, John K.
• Waters, Sean
• Li, Xun
• Vandergoes, Marcus J.
• Wood, Susanna A.

Titel

Paleo-diatom records reveal ecological change not detected using traditional measures of lake eutrophication

Ist Teil von

• The Science of the total environment, 2023-04, Vol.867, p.161414-161414, Article 161414

Ort / Verlag

Netherlands: Elsevier B.V

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Lakes provide crucial ecosystem services and harbour unique and rich biodiversity, yet despite decades of research and management focus, cultural eutrophication remains a predominant threat to their health. Our ability to manage lake eutrophication is restricted by the lack of long-term monitoring records. To circumvent this, we developed a bio-indicator approach for inferring trophic level from lake diatom communities and applied this to sediment cores from two lakes experiencing eutrophication stress. Diatom indicators strongly predicted observed trophic levels, and when applied to sediment cores, diatom predicted trophic level reconstructions were consistent with monitoring data and land-use histories. However, there were significant recent shifts in diatom communities not captured by the diatom-based index or monitoring data, suggesting that conventional trophic level indices obscure important ecological change. New approaches, such as the one in this study, are critical to detect early changes in water quality and prevent the decline of lake ecosystems worldwide. [Display omitted] •A diatom-based sediment index was developed to reconstruct lake trophic conditions.•Records of environmental change were compared with reconstructed trophic level.•Trophic index did not capture important lake change resulting from human stressors.•Diatom communities underwent change prior to shifts in lake trophic level index.