Acidity status and phytoplankton species richness, standing crop, and community composition in Adirondack, New York, U.S.A. lakes

Siegfried, Clifford A.; Bloomfield, Jay A.; Sutherland, James W.

doi:10.1007/bf00008472

Cited by 29 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…In the Adirondack lakes, the diversity and richness of bacterial communities were significantly correlated with pH, mirroring similar relationships observed between higher organisms and pH in lakes (12,23,43,46). However, pH was not significantly correlated with the overall structure of bacterioplankton communities as investigated by PCA, since the most dominant groups of bacteria (Betaproteobacteria and Actinobacteria) were not correlated with pH.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 66%

Bacterial Community Structure of Acid-Impacted Lakes: What Controls Diversity?

Percent

Frischer

Vescio

et al. 2008

Appl Environ Microbiol

101

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Although it is recognized that acidification of freshwater systems results in decreased overall species richness of plants and animals, little is known about the response of aquatic microbial communities to acidification. In this study we examined bacterioplankton community diversity and structure in 18 lakes located in the Adirondack Park (in the state of New York in the United States) that were affected to various degrees by acidic deposition and assessed correlations with 31 physical and chemical parameters. The pH of these lakes ranged from 4.9 to 7.8. These studies were conducted as a component of the Adirondack Effects Assessment Program supported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Thirty-one independent 16S rRNA gene libraries consisting of 2,135 clones were constructed from epilimnion and hypolimnion water samples. Bacterioplankton community composition was determined by sequencing and amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis of the clone libraries. Nineteen bacterial classes representing 95 subclasses were observed, but clone libraries were dominated by representatives of the Actinobacteria and Betaproteobacteria classes. Although the diversity and richness of bacterioplankton communities were positively correlated with pH, the overall community composition assessed by principal component analysis was not. The strongest correlations were observed between bacterioplankton communities and lake depth, hydraulic retention time, dissolved inorganic carbon, and nonlabile monomeric aluminum concentrations. While there was not an overall correlation between bacterioplankton community structure and pH, several bacterial classes, including the Alphaproteobacteria, were directly correlated with acidity. These results indicate that unlike more identifiable correlations between acidity and species richness for higher trophic levels, controls on bacterioplankton community structure are likely more complex, involving both direct and indirect processes.Freshwater, although accounting for less than 1% of the Earth's liquid water, is arguably the most important natural resource on the planet. Microbial communities associated with freshwater environments form the foundation of freshwater food webs and are the primary biogeochemical agents involved in nutrient cycling; yet they remain relatively understudied. During the past several decades, our appreciation of the diversity and complexity of microbial systems has dramatically increased, largely due to the use of new molecular genetic tools in environmental microbiology. Our knowledge of marine microbial communities has been the focus of considerable study and has been growing at an exponential rate. Freshwater microbial populations have also attracted attention, but to date, there has been considerably less research on these populations (64).Before culture-independent molecular genetics-based techniques were available, freshwater microbial communities were believed to be more similar to marine and soil communities than different from marine and soil communit...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 66%

Bacterial Community Structure of Acid-Impacted Lakes: What Controls Diversity?

Percent

Frischer

Vescio

et al. 2008

Appl Environ Microbiol

101

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“…The NO 3 -N variability in lakes increased with pH and Chl a concentrations and it decreased with NH 4 -N and Fe concentrations. These patterns are consistent with patterns shown in other studies of lakes of different trophic status (Siegfried et al, 1989;DArcy and Carignan, 1997). In streams, the PLS analysis showed a negative correlation to temperature, percentage of drainage area as agricultural and urban, PO 4 -P, Si and TP, and a positive correlation to flow and elevation.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

Growing season variability of nitrate along a trophic gradient – contrasting patterns between lakes and streams

Khalili

Weyhenmeyer

2009

Aquat. Sci.

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We studied the growing season (May to October) variability of NO 3 -N across Swedish lakes and streams. We found that NO 3 -N concentrations showed the highest growing season variability among all water chemical variables tested, both in lakes and in streams. However, the growing season variability of NO 3 -N increased with increasing trophic status in lakes while it decreased in streams. We attributed the contrasting pattern between lakes and streams to the relative importance of biological uptake and denitrification with increasing trophic status. Our results highlight the relation between growing season NO 3 -N variability and trophic status, which is positive in lakes but negative in streams. The findings of this study have important ramifications for ecosystem studies as well as water management. We suggest that the assessment of growing season variability of NO 3 -N in aquatic systems can be improved by considering the effect of trophic status.

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“…com Table 7 Mean differences between acid (ANC < 25 eq/l) and buffered (ANC > 25 eq/l) lakes in zooplankton variables. Data are from Tessier and Horwitz (1988;personal communication) for the Eastern Lake Survey phase II (ELS-II) study and from Siegfried et al (1989;personal communication) for the Adirondack study. Significance tests are results of t-tests on log-transformed data using separate variance estimates except for species richness (no log transform), incidence data (chi-square test), and proportion of large individuals (no test possible using pooled data reported by Tessier and Horwitz 1988, but they report significant differences in size distributions using ANOVA on a principle component scores) Table 8 Correlations among measures of nutrient supply and resource availabilities in Phase II of the Eastern Lakes Survey of acid lakes with ANC < 25 eq/l (below the diagonal) and for buffered lakes with ANC > 25 eq/l (above the diagonal).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do nutrient-competition models predict nutrient availabilities in limnetic ecosystems?

Leibold

1997

Oecologia

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Recent theory on resource competition, predicated on the importance of hypothesized trade-offs between minimum requirements for nutrient resources, predicts that there should be negative correlations between the supply rate of major limiting nutrients and the availability of at least some secondary nutrients and/or among the availabilities of different limiting nutrients. However, an analysis of four data sets from large-scale surveys of lakes shows mostly positive correlations among the availabilities and supplies of nutrients. In contrast, a fifth data set, obtained in an area of high acidification, does show several important negative correlations that are consistent with the nutrient competition models. Further analyses suggest two possible explanations for the preponderance of positive correlation. Negative correlations between nutrients and light indicate that an important trade-off among species regulating phytoplankton may involve low light requirements versus low nutrient requirements. The existence of negative correlations in nutrient availabilities in acidic lakes (where herbivory appears less important than in buffered lakes) also suggests that another important trade-off may involve an ability to minimize loss rates (especially due to grazing) versus an overall ability to exploit nutrient resources.

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Acidity status and phytoplankton species richness, standing crop, and community composition in Adirondack, New York, U.S.A. lakes

Cited by 29 publications

References 18 publications

Bacterial Community Structure of Acid-Impacted Lakes: What Controls Diversity?

Bacterial Community Structure of Acid-Impacted Lakes: What Controls Diversity?

Growing season variability of nitrate along a trophic gradient – contrasting patterns between lakes and streams

Do nutrient-competition models predict nutrient availabilities in limnetic ecosystems?

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