Salting our freshwater lakes

Dugan, Hilary A.; Bartlett, Sarah L.; Burke, Samantha; Doubek, Jonathan P.; Krivak-Tetley, Flora E.; Skaff, Nicholas K.; Summers, Jamie C.; Farrell, Kaitlin J.; McCullough, Ian M.; Morales‐Williams, Ana M.; Roberts, Derek C.; Ouyang, Zutao; Scordo, Facundo; Hanson, Paul C.; Weathers, Kathleen C.

doi:10.1073/pnas.1620211114

Cited by 345 publications

(264 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Lakes 0-10 6-1,000 Bridgeman et al, 2000;Cherkauer & Ostenso, 1976;Dixit, Dixit, Smol, Hughes, & Paulsen, 2000;Dugan et al, 2017;Evans & Frick, 2001;Judd et al, 2005;Kelting, Laxson, & Yerger, 2012;Likens & Buso, 2010;MacLeod, Sibert, Snyder, & Koretsky, 2011;Mueller & Gaechter, 2012;Novotny, Murphy, & Stefan, 2008;Sibert et al, 2015 River/stream 1-20 10-7, 730 Corsi, De Cicco, Lutz, & Hirsch, 2015;Corsi et al, 2010;Crowther & Hynes, 1977;Evans & Frick, 2001;Findlay & Kelly, 2011;Hubbart, Kellner, Hooper, & Zeiger, 2017;Kaushal et al, 2005;Kelly et al, 2008;Kilgour, Gharabaghi, & Perera, 2014;Wallace & Biastoch, 2016 Wetland/pond 0-12 10-13,500 Collins & Russell, 2009;Evans & Frick, 2001;Fay & Shi, 2012;Hill & Sadowski, 2016;Ohno, 1990;Richburg et al, 2001;Sriyaraj & Shutes, 2001;Van Meter et al, 2011 impacts. Evans and Frick (2001) were the first to provide a robust assessment on the impacts of road salts on a variety of freshwater organisms.…”

Section: Range Of Road Salt Contamination (Mg CL − /L) Referencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of the species, community, and ecosystem impacts of road salt salinisation in fresh waters

2019

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Freshwater ecosystems worldwide are threatened by salinisation caused by human activities. Scientific attention on the ecological impacts of salinisation from road deicing salts is increasing exponentially. Spanning multiple trophic levels and ecosystem types, we review and synthesise the ecological impacts of road salt in freshwater ecosystems to understand species‐, community‐, and ecosystem‐level responses. In our review, we identify knowledge gaps that we hope will motivate future research directions. We found that road salts negatively affect species at all trophic levels, from biofilms to fish. The concentration at which road salt triggered an effect varied considerably. Species‐level impacts were generally sub‐lethal, leading to reductions in growth and reproduction, which can be magnified by natural stressors such as predation. Community‐level impacts including reductions of biodiversity were common, leading to communities of salt‐tolerant species, which may have implications for disease transmission from enhanced recruitment of salt‐tolerant host species such as mosquitoes. At the ecosystem level, road salts alter nutrient and energy flow. Contaminated wetlands could see greater export of greenhouse gases, streams will probably export more nitrogen and carbon, and lakes will encounter altered hydrology and oxygen dynamics, leading to greater phosphorus release from sediments. While it is necessary to keep roads safe for humans, the costs to freshwater ecosystems may be severe if actions are not taken to mitigate road salt salinisation. Cooperation among policy makers, environmental managers, transportation professionals, scientists, and the public will be crucial to prevent a loss of ecosystem services including water clarity, drinkable water, recreation venues, and fisheries.

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Section: Range Of Road Salt Contamination (Mg CL − /L) Referencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of the species, community, and ecosystem impacts of road salt salinisation in fresh waters

2019

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“…While increases in salinity due to road salt application are a nearterm concern and have been the focus of intense media interest, climate change is also expected to have a significant impact on lake salinity levels in the coming decades (Dugan et al, 2017;Williams, 1999;Wissel et al, 2011). Climate-driven changes in salinity are especially concerning for lakes in the Great Plains of North America, where decreased precipitation and rising temperatures are expected to increase the frequency of droughts (Dai, 2012;O'Reilly et al, 2015;Sauchyn et al, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can dispersal buffer against salinity‐driven zooplankton community change in Great Plains' lakes?

Huynh

Gray

2019

Freshwater Biology

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1. The North American Great Plains contains thousands of lakes that vary in salinity from freshwater to hypersaline. Paleolimnological studies show that salinity levels in these lakes are tightly linked with climate, and current projections point to a more arid future in the region due to natural and anthropogenic climate change, potentially influencing lake salinity.2. Many zooplankton species are sensitive to changes in salinity, and their position near the base of the aquatic food web makes it important to understand how they might respond to increasing salinity levels. Zooplankton communities in lakes with rising salinity levels may exhibit changes in structure, including a shift toward more salinity-tolerant species and a reduction in abundance, species richness, and diversity. However, it is possible that dispersal of zooplankton among lakes could mitigate such community changes when migrant populations replace sensitive zooplankton with those that are locally adapted to higher salinities.3. To test if dispersal could reduce salinity-induced changes in zooplankton communities, we ran a field enclosure experiment at a freshwater lake in southern Saskatchewan where we manipulated salinity levels and zooplankton dispersal.We evaluated how salinity and dispersal influenced species identities and relative abundances (community structure) using multivariate statistics and comparing taxonomic and functional compositions among the different treatments (richness, diversity, and evenness). 4. We found that increasing salinity levels in our enclosures above that in our study lake resulted in lower zooplankton abundances and species richness levels, primarily due to the loss of cladoceran species. However, patterns in our multivariate analyses suggested that cladocerans were maintained in enclosures with salinity levels of 2.5 and 5.0 g/L when those enclosures received immigration from nearby lakes.5. In contrast, our univariate analyses failed to find evidence that immigration affected community structure (richness, diversity, evenness). The lack of significant statistical differences could suggest that dispersal does not have an effect, or it may have been a problem with statistical power, as a power analysis suggested that fairly large effect sizes would have been required to achieve statistical significance.

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“…The effects of salinisation on biodiversity are often studied at the local scale; however, the salinisation of freshwater habitats is happening at the landscape level (Dugan et al, 2017;Kaushal et al, 2018), so it is important that it is studied from a regional perspective (e.g. metacommunity theory; Leibold et al, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Salinisation reduces biodiversity in neighbouring freshwater patches in experimental metacommunities

Mausbach¹,

Dzialowski

2019

Freshwater Biology

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1. Aquatic ecosystems are biodiversity hot spots across many landscapes; therefore, the degradation of these habitats can lead to decreases in biodiversity across multiple scales. Salinisation is a global issue that threatens freshwater ecosystems by reducing water quality and local biodiversity. The effects of salinity on local processes have been studied extensively; however, the effects of salinisation or similar environmental stressors within a metacommunity (a dispersal network of several distinct communities) have not been explored.2. We tested how the spatial heterogeneity and the environmental contrast between freshwater and saline habitat patches influenced cladoceran biodiversity and species composition at local and regional scales in a metacommunity mesocosm experiment. We defined spatial heterogeneity as the proportion of freshwater to saltwater patches within the metacommunity, ranging from a freshwater-dominated metacommunity to a saltwater-dominated metacommunity. Environmental contrast was defined as the environmental distance between habitat patches along the salinity gradient in which low-contrast metacommunities consisted of freshwater and low-salinity patches and high-contrast metacommunities consisted of freshwater and high-salinity patches.3. We hypothesised that the α-richness of freshwater patches and metacommunity γ-richness would decrease as freshwater patches became less abundant along the spatial heterogeneity gradient in both low-and high-contrast metacommunities, because there would be fewer freshwater patches that could serve as source populations for declining populations. We hypothesised that low-contrast metacommunities would support more species across the spatial heterogeneity gradient than high-contrast metacommunities, because, via dispersal, low-salinity patches can support halotolerant freshwater species that can mitigate population declines in neighbouring freshwater patches, whereas` high-salinity patches will mostly support halophilic species, providing fewer potential colonisers to freshwater patches.4. We found that α-richness of freshwater mesocosms and metacommunity γ-richness declined in saline-dominated metacommunities regardless of the environmental contrast between the freshwater and saline mesocosms. We found that environmental contrast influenced freshwater and saline community composition | 593 MAUSBACH And dZIALOWSKI

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Salting our freshwater lakes

Cited by 345 publications

References 37 publications

A review of the species, community, and ecosystem impacts of road salt salinisation in fresh waters

A review of the species, community, and ecosystem impacts of road salt salinisation in fresh waters

Can dispersal buffer against salinity‐driven zooplankton community change in Great Plains' lakes?

Salinisation reduces biodiversity in neighbouring freshwater patches in experimental metacommunities

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