Benthic secondary production in eight oligotrophic arctic Alaskan lakes

Northington, Robert M.; Keyse, Matthew D.; Beaty, Steven R.; Whalen, Stephen C.; Sokol, Eric R.; Hershey, Anne E.

doi:10.1899/09-026.1

Cited by 20 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…Similar high reliance of aquatic consumers on allochthonous organic carbon was reported for oligotrophic lakes (Carpenter et al, 2005;Grey, Jones, & Sleep, 2000;Northington et al, 2010), leading to the conclusion by Berggren et al (2010) that efficient bacterial trophic repackaging was an important process during period of high allochthonous reliance of aquatic consumers. Since similar observations were reported for Lake Tollari (Figure 4 and Belle, Poska, et al, 2017), these findings confirm that allochthonous organic matter can become an important carbon source for aquatic consumers during periods of low in-lake primary production.…”

Section: Carbon Processing In Benthic Food Webs and Climate Changesupporting

confidence: 73%

Long‐term effects of climate change on carbon flows through benthic secondary production in small lakes

et al. 2018

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A palaeolimnological study, covering the last c. 12,000 years, was conducted in a small subalpine lake located in the Alps to study climate change impacts on carbon flows through food webs in small lakes. We used analysis of sedimentary pigments and carbon stable isotopic composition of chironomid remains (δ13CHC) to reconstruct past dynamics of phytoplankton community and carbon sources sustaining benthic consumers. Chironomid biomass was sustained by a combination of allochthonous, autochthonous and CH4‐derived organic matters, and their relative contributions were correlated to changes in temperature. Relatively high terrestrial contributions to chironomid biomass were observed during period of the Holocene when in‐lake production was low. Relatively high incorporation of CH4‐derived carbon to chironomid biomass was found during anoxic events co‐occurring with the Holocene thermal maximum. Results were then compared with those collected in a small boreal lake in Estonia. We tested the hypothesis that responses in carbon flows through benthic food web to past climate change would be similar between these lakes. We found a negative correlation between δ13CHC values of both lakes and inferred air temperature, suggesting that temperature was the major driver to different food sources being incorporated into chironomid biomass. Our study demonstrated that air temperature was the principal driver of the energy flows through benthic food web in the studied small lakes. We conjectured that carbon cycling in food webs of small lakes might be strongly sensitive to climate change.

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Section: Carbon Processing In Benthic Food Webs and Climate Changesupporting

confidence: 73%

Long‐term effects of climate change on carbon flows through benthic secondary production in small lakes

et al. 2018

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“…In lakes with low hypolimnetic DO, δ 13 C of larval Chironomini is lower than in larger lakes with high hypolimnetic DO, suggesting that use of methane‐derived carbon (MDC) is greater under hypoxic conditions (Hershey et al ). Furthermore, benthic secondary production in some of these lakes is very high, ranging from one gram dry mass m −2 yr −1 to 20.55 g dry mass m −2 yr −1 , higher than would be expected if it was supported only by autochthonous primary production (Northington et al ). Gentzel et al () found that the ratio of MOB : methanogen DNA on tubes compared to that in the sediment supported the hypothesis of microbial gardening of MOB in an hypoxic zone where the rate of CH 4 efflux was relatively high, but not in a well‐oxygenated zone, where CH 4 efflux was low.…”

Section: Study Sitesmentioning

confidence: 90%

Methane efflux and oxidation, and use of methane-derived carbon by larval Chironomini, in arctic lake sediments

et al. 2015

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We measured sediment methane (CH 4 ) efflux and CH 4 oxidation in intact sediment cores from 17 arctic Alaskan lakes which varied in lake area and depth. We evaluated the relationships between CH 4 oxidation and lake area, depth, and hypolimnetic dissolved oxygen (DO). We also evaluated the relationship between d 13 C of larval Chironomini and CH 4 oxidation and estimated use of methane-derived carbon (MDC) by larval Chironomini. CH 4 oxidation declined exponentially as hypolimnetic DO increased, and Chironomini d 13 C declined exponentially as CH 4 oxidation increased. Mixing model estimates indicated that Chironomini incorporated 0% to 40% MDC between study lakes, dependent on CH 4 oxidation. These estimates overlap broadly with those reported for eutrophic lakes, illustrating that use of MDC is not strictly related to lake productivity, but instead is determined by factors controlling hypolimnetic DO and facilitating CH 4 oxidation at the sedimentwater interface. In the lakes studied here, hypolimnetic DO was determined by basin characteristics. Our results, viewed in the context of other studies elsewhere, illustrate that CH 4 oxidation is a potentially important process supporting consumer production across the full spectrum of lake productivity.

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“…While some zoobenthos can and do rely on benthic primary production (Strayer and Likens ; Hecky and Hesslein ; Devlin et al ; Lau et al ), others employ a diversity of other feeding strategies (Cummins and Klug ) and can feed on resources such as terrestrial particulates, settling phytoplankton and other animals (Merritt et al ). In a survey of eight oligotrophic Arctic lakes, Northington et al () found only a weak relationship between zoobenthos production and benthic primary production.…”

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confidence: 99%

Habitat, not resource availability, limits consumer production in lake ecosystems

Craig

Jones

Weidel

et al. 2015

Limnology & Oceanography

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Food web productivity in lakes can be limited by dissolved organic carbon (DOC), which reduces fish production by limiting the abundance of their zoobenthic prey. We demonstrate that in a set of 10 small, north temperate lakes spanning a wide DOC gradient, these negative effects of high DOC concentrations on zoobenthos production are driven primarily by availability of warm, well‐oxygenated habitat, rather than by light limitation of benthic primary production as previously proposed. There was no significant effect of benthic primary production on zoobenthos production after controlling for oxygen, even though stable isotope analysis indicated that zoobenthos do use this resource. Mean whole‐lake zoobenthos production was lower in high‐DOC lakes with reduced availability of oxygenated habitat, as was fish biomass. These insights improve understanding of lake food webs and inform management in the face of spatial variability and ongoing temporal change in lake DOC concentrations.

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Benthic secondary production in eight oligotrophic arctic Alaskan lakes

Cited by 20 publications

References 81 publications

Long‐term effects of climate change on carbon flows through benthic secondary production in small lakes

Long‐term effects of climate change on carbon flows through benthic secondary production in small lakes

Methane efflux and oxidation, and use of methane-derived carbon by larval Chironomini, in arctic lake sediments

Habitat, not resource availability, limits consumer production in lake ecosystems

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