Algal Indication of Climatic Gradients

Abstract

Bio-indication is only possible because algal communities respond to environmental changes in a consistent way. In particular, the vectors of algal changes over latitudes and altitudes are well correlated with respective climatic gradients. The relationships between biotic and climatic changes are insufficiently studied so far, but regularities are analyzable provided the adequate geographic scale. Thus the impact of seasonality requires ecological study of the aquatic object as a whole or a considerable part of it. For the gradient analysis of altitudinal changes the sampling data must cover a region of diverse relief, whereas latitudinal gradients are traceable of sizeable parts of continents encompassing different climatic zones. In our studies, the impact of temperature changes is invariably significant when revealed with the help of bio-indication analysis. In the boreal realm, algal development most typically show three seasonal peaks correlated with the dynamics of ice cover, whereas two to single peak are distinguished down the latitudes. The latitudinal dynamics is fairly obvious in the quantitative relationships between diatoms, green, golden algae, and Infraspecies-Species variability. With climatic stress ascending to the north, the role of diatoms, but in the high Arctic regions drops significantly. The Infraspecific variability index increases from 1.09 up to 1.42. To the south, over the mountainous areas of Tajikistan, Georgia, Mediterranean and India, diatoms consistently decrease over the altitudinal range 200 -2500 meters, while the other algal groups betray a less significant variation. Such regularities are more obvious with statistical correlation of climatic variables and freshwater algal diversity. Thus the distribution of phytoplankton species in the rivers of Yakutia and Chukotka over the gradient of DHI index and the duration of the ice free period is controlled by sun light intensity in the first place, but also reflects variation in the climatic stress resistance, the most prominent in the case of diatom algae.

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“…The gradient of solar radiation and temperature is define not only species richness of algal communities as a whole but also species content [22] that was revealed in the high latitude habitats [2,21,23]. Because these pair of climatically related parameters is fluctuated synchronously and we revealed correlation of species richness with habitat altitude in the Pamir high mountains that mean that both global related parameters can define the algal communities' development in the studied high mountain habitats in Pamir.…”

“…When operating with alpha-diversity of freshwater algae we use a multilevel approach with the hierarchy of levels such as infraspecies variation level, species composition, community composition, and flora of a water body [1]. Up to now it is still a problem to define the role of particular environmental variables as well as to predict the community's response to environmental change [2]. One of the major climatically related parameter is the altitude of algal community habitat.…”

Influence of Macro-Environmental Climatic Factors on Distribution and Productivity of Freshwater Algae

“…This study area is represented by most sharp climatic parameters such as minimal temperature in the World: in Verkhoyansk is pole of cold. The phytoplankton structure was changed in parallel with the incoming solar energy, as we show earlier in algal indication of climatic gradients [14]. The latitude border about 62 degree of northern latitude is also critical to the photosynthetic terrestrial plants which are changed their structure from Arctic to Temperate Forest Biomes (Figure 3).…”

Comparative Analysis of Diatom Algae Diversity in the Pamir Protected Lakes, Tajikistan

“…Earlier we revealed altitude as one of the influencing factor on the level of habitats up to 2,600 m a.s.l. and also high latitude [24,25]. More of them, the index value that we calculated for the Pamir mineral springs algal communities was 1.24.…”