Effects of Climate, Limnological Features and Watershed Clearcut Logging on Long-Term Variation in Zooplankton Communities of Boreal Shield Lakes
نویسندگان
چکیده
In Canada, climate change and forest harvesting may both threaten the ecological integrity of boreal lakes. To disentangle the effects of natural variation in climate and lake environments from those of logging, we evaluated long-term variation (1991–2003) in zooplankton communities of six boreal lakes in Ontario. We monitored concomitantly changes in zooplankton abundance and composition in three undisturbed and three harvested lakes, five years prior and eight years after watershed clearcut logging. We tested the hypothesis that long-term natural variation in climate and lake environments will be more important drivers of zooplankton community changes than short-term impacts of logging. We used space/time interaction tests and asymmetric eigenvector maps to model zooplankton responses to environmental changes and logging. Year-to-year variation in zooplankton abundance and composition were almost an order of magnitude whereas among-lake variation was stable through time. Breakpoints in time series of zooplankton in each lake were not directly related to logging. Climatic and limnological features were the most important drivers of long-term variation in the zooplankton community, shading the effect of logging. These results highlight the need to better understand the pressures exerted by climate change on boreal lake ecosystems in the context of anthropogenic pressure, such as logging.
منابع مشابه
Implications of climate warming for Boreal Shield lakes: a review and synthesis
Climate change is a reality. A warming climate will have large effects on lakes of the Boreal Shield. Our ability to forecast these effects, however, is hampered by a very incomplete understanding of the actual interactions between weather and many aspects of lake ecosystems. Climate change will affect lakes in very complex ways. Changing weather conditions will have direct effects on thermal h...
متن کاملImpact of Forest Harvesting on Trophic Structure of Eastern Canadian Boreal Shield Lakes: Insights from Stable Isotope Analyses
Perturbations on ecosystems can have profound immediate effects and can, accordingly, greatly alter the natural community. Land-use such as forestry activities in the Canadian Boreal region have increased in the last decades, raising concerns about their potential impact on aquatic ecosystems. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of forest harvesting on trophic structure in ea...
متن کاملEcological linkages between community and genetic diversity in zooplankton among boreal shield lakes.
Ecological linkages between species diversity in communities and genetic diversity in populations have potential to influence the assembly of communities in habitats recovering from human disturbance, but few studies have attempted to synthesize relationships between these levels of biological organization, especially for locally adapted species. No such studies have been done in freshwater eco...
متن کاملLoss of trophic complexity in saline prairie lakes as indicated by stable-isotope based community-metrics
Variations in climate, watershed characteristics and lake-internal processes often result in a large variability of food-web complexity in lake ecosystems. Some of the largest ranges in these environmental parameters can be found in lakes across the northern Great Plains as they are characterized by extreme gradients in respect to lake morphometry and water chemistry, with individual parameters...
متن کاملPotential impacts of clearcutting on parasites of minnows in small boreal lakes.
Clearcutting and deforestation lead to increased erosion, increased water temperature, altered water chemistry, and modified watershed hydrology in aquatic systems. Effects on biological organisms have been documented for phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthos, and fish. In this study, parasites of the northern redbelly dace, Phoxinus eos (Cope), were examined from an experimental area consisting ...
متن کامل