Climate warming and changes in Cyclotella sensu lato in the Laurentian Great Lakes

Abstract

We present the first evidence of biological change in all of the pelagic Laurentian Great Lakes associated with recent climatic warming. We hypothesized that measured changes in lake temperature, and the resulting physical changes to water columns, were affecting diatom communities in the Great Lakes. A paleolimnological analysis of 10 sediment cores collected from deep locations throughout the Great Lakes basin indicates a recent (30-50 yr) reorganization of the diatom community to one characterized by elevated abundances of several species from the group Cyclotella sensu lato, coinciding with rising atmospheric and water temperatures. These Cyclotella increases are a probable mechanistic result of new physical regimes such as changing stratification depths and longer ice-free periods, and possibly water quality shifts. Efforts to understand the mechanisms of these changes are ongoing, but this compositional reorganization in primary producers could have important implications to Great Lakes food webs.As atmospheric warming continues, seasonal exposure of lake water columns to sunlight lengthens and ice periods become shorter and less intense. The frequency and duration of stratification events may be expected to increase, as has been observed in Lake Superior (Austin and Colman 2008). Changes to the biota of the Laurentian Great Lakes due to warming are likely occurring. The Great Lakes comprise almost 90% of the surface water resources of North America, so it is imperative to understand the effect of climate shifts on general biology and food webs.Studies of species shifts driven by climate have largely focused on larger flora and fauna (Smol 2012) and usually track how a species alters its phenology or shifts its range. For instance, as a region becomes warmer and wetter, some plants and animals will thrive while other species populations will fragment, shrink and be driven to extinction. Some species adjust to climate change by moving outside their historical geographic boundaries. For phytoplankton, a climate-driven shift tends to mean a change in the dominant flora and reduction or extirpation of previously dominant taxa. It has been recognized in paleorecords from freshwater aquatic systems that phytoplankton, particularly diatoms, exhibit the greatest modification due to recent climate change, followed by invertebrates such as cladocerans and chironomids (R€ uhland et al. 2014). For instance, diatoms in a dated sediment core from Lake of the Woods, northwestern Ontario, were compared to instrumental records (R€ uhland et al. 2008) and Cyclotella sensu lato taxa increased concurrently with a lengthening ice-free period (by almost 30 d in the past 40 yr) and increasing water temperature, providing evidence that warming played a role in diatom community re-organization. Also, a decline in wind speeds over the past 50 yr was significantly correlated with the increasing relative abundance of Cyclotella. Atmospheric warming and associated changes in lake thermal properties were the most plausible ex...

Interannual variation in seasonal diatom sedimentation reveals the importance of late winter processes and their timing for sediment signal formation

“…in the sediment record (reviewed in Rühland et al ). Yet, the identification of specific mechanisms responsible for correlations of diatom abundances with ice‐out date (Wiltse et al ) or the duration of spring mixing (Kienel et al ) has been elusive (Smol et al ; Reavie et al ; Malik et al ; Warner et al ). In most previous studies, data collection did not begin until after ice‐out and/or did not couple sediment trap data with concurrent monitoring of chemical and biological variables in the water column, making potential links to processes during the ice‐covered period impossible to detect.…”

Effects of Climate Change on Lake Thermal Structure and Biotic Response in Northern Wilderness Lakes

“…The ecologies of these deep lake species have not been completely resolved; however, we generally consider the small Cyclotella and Discostella species to be members of the deep chlorophyll layer, i.e., associated with the thermocline [8,76,78]. In many northern lakes, their increased abundance is considered indicative of longer and more stable periods of stratification [1,76,79]. Others have also shown that the size structure within populations of these species may also reflect climate drivers [80].…”

Consideration of species-specific diatom indicators of anthropogenic stress in the Great Lakes

“…Sediment cores were collected from 10 locations throughout the Great Lakes, as detailed by Reavie et al [14]. Cores were age dated using 210 Pb, and details of those age models are provided by Reavie et al [15] (in review).…”

“…Because NCDC weather data did not give daily mean temperatures, the daily mean temperature was calculated by averaging daily minimum and maximum temperatures. Although we compiled these variations of temperature data, we ultimately selected analyses using annual minimum temperature due to its apparent dominant effect on phytoplankton communities in the Great Lakes [14] and because, worldwide, it is the most rapidly increasing temperature parameter [21]. The atmospheric deposition monitoring stations within 100 km distance from a given lake’s shoreline were selected to calculate loading relevant to that lake.…”