Do warming and humic river runoff alter the metabolic balance of lake ecosystems?

Rodríguez, Patricia; Byström, Pär; Geibrink, Erik; Hedström, Per; Vasconcelos, Francisco; Karlsson, Jan

doi:10.1007/s00027-015-0463-y

Cited by 14 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Hence, we were able to study the direct effects of increased humic input (i.e., brownification) on the survival from autumn over winter of the YOY cohorts that the introduced adult stickleback produced in spring 2012. Treatment effects during the ice-free growth season 2012 on YOY performance and recruitment levels and the long-term response of stickleback populations and ecosystems have been and will be reported elsewhere (Jonsson et al 2015; Rodríguez et al 2016; Hedström et al 2016 in submitted).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 88%

Brownification increases winter mortality in fish

et al. 2016

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In northern climates, winter is a bottleneck for many organisms. Low light and resource availability constrains individual foraging rates, potentially leading to starvation and increased mortality. Increasing input of humic substances to aquatic ecosystems causes brownification of water and hence a further decrease of light availability, which may lead to further decreased foraging rates and starvation mortality during winter. To test this hypothesis, we measured the effects of experimentally increased humic water input on consumption and survival of young-of-the-year three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) over winter in large outdoor enclosures. Population densities were estimated in autumn, and the following spring and food availability and consumption were monitored over winter. As hypothesized, mortality was higher under humic (76%) as compared to ambient conditions (64%). In addition, body condition and ingested prey biomass were lower under humic conditions, even though resource availability was not lower under humic conditions. Light conditions were significantly poorer under humic conditions. This suggests that increased mortality and decreased body condition and ingested prey biomass were not due to decreased resource availability but due to decreased search efficiency in this visual feeding consumer. Increased future brownification of aquatic systems may, therefore, negatively affect both recruitment and densities of fish.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00442-016-3779-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 88%

Brownification increases winter mortality in fish

et al. 2016

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“…For further details, see Rodríguez et al. (). Each tDOM by temperature treatment was replicated four times.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Incubations were performed on four occasions (Julian days 161–165, 196–200, 242–247, and 273–277) as described in Rodríguez et al. (), and oxygen dynamics were converted into units of carbon as described in Vasconcelos et al. ().…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bottom‐up and top‐down effects of browning and warming on shallow lake food webs

Vasconcelos

Diehl

Rodríguez

et al. 2018

Global Change Biology

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Productivity and trophic structure of aquatic ecosystems result from a complex interplay of bottom‐up and top‐down forces that operate across benthic and pelagic food web compartments. Projected global changes urge the question how this interplay will be affected by browning (increasing input of terrestrial dissolved organic matter), nutrient enrichment and warming. We explored this with a process‐based model of a shallow lake food web consisting of benthic and pelagic components (abiotic resources, primary producers, grazers, carnivores), and compared model expectations with the results of a browning and warming experiment in nutrient‐poor ponds harboring a boreal lake community. Under low nutrient conditions, the model makes three major predictions. (a) Browning reduces light and increases nutrient supply; this decreases benthic and increases pelagic production, gradually shifting productivity from the benthic to the pelagic habitat. (b) Because of active habitat choice, fish exert top‐down control on grazers and benefit primary producers primarily in the more productive of the two habitats. (c) Warming relaxes top‐down control of grazers by fish and decreases primary producer biomass, but effects of warming are generally small compared to effects of browning and nutrient supply. Experimental results were consistent with most model predictions for browning: light penetration, benthic algal production, and zoobenthos biomass decreased, and pelagic nutrients and pelagic algal production increased with browning. Also consistent with expectations, warming had negative effects on benthic and pelagic algal biomass and weak effects on algal production and zoobenthos and zooplankton biomass. Inconsistent with expectations, browning had no effect on zooplankton and warming effects on fish depended on browning. The model is applicable also to nutrient‐rich systems, and we propose that it is a useful tool for the exploration of the consequences of different climate change scenarios for productivity and food web dynamics in shallow lakes, the worldwide most common lake type.

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“…Further details of how changes in oxygen concentrations were converted to measures of carbon production are described in Appendix and in Rodríguez et al. ().…”

Section: Experimental Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asymmetrical competition between aquatic primary producers in a warmer and browner world

Vasconcelos

Diehl

Rodríguez

et al. 2016

Ecology

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In shallow lakes, pelagic and benthic producers engage in spatially asymmetrical resource competition. Pelagic producers intercept the flux of light to the benthic habitat and benthic producers intercept the flux of sediment-derived nutrients to the pelagic habitat. In boreal and subarctic regions, climate change is affecting this interaction both directly through warming and indirectly through increased loading with colored dissolved organic matter (cDOM) from the catchment ("brownification"). We use a dynamical ecosystem model to explore the consequences of these changing environmental conditions for lake primary production and compare model predictions with the results of an experiment in which we manipulated water temperature and cDOM supply in a 2 × 2 factorial design. The experiment was performed in field mesocosms large enough to harbor reproducing fish populations and was run over an entire growing season. In agreement with model predictions, benthic algal production and biomass declined and pelagic algal production and biomass increased with browning. Pelagic nutrient concentrations diverged over time between low and high cDOM treatments, suggesting that browning alleviated pelagic algal nutrient limitation by shading benthic competitors and preventing them from intercepting the release of nutrients from the sediment. Warming considerably reduced benthic and pelagic algal production as well as pelagic algal biomass and total phosphorus. The warming results are only in partial accordance with model expectations, but can be explained by an indirectly inferred, positive response of macrophyte production (which was not included in the model) to warming. Our study suggests that lake ecosystem responses to climate change are mediated by cross-habitat feedbacks between benthic and pelagic producers.

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Do warming and humic river runoff alter the metabolic balance of lake ecosystems?

Cited by 14 publications

References 42 publications

Brownification increases winter mortality in fish

Brownification increases winter mortality in fish

Bottom‐up and top‐down effects of browning and warming on shallow lake food webs

Asymmetrical competition between aquatic primary producers in a warmer and browner world

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