Lake Michigan: Nearshore variability and a nearshore–offshore distinction in water quality

Yurista, Peder M.; Kelly, John R.; Cotter, Anne M.; Miller, Samuel E.; Alstine, Jon D. Van

doi:10.1016/j.jglr.2014.12.010

Cited by 27 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…The first phosphorus loading goals for the Laurentian Great Lakes were expressed as total loads (International Joint Commission 1978), an approach that implicitly treated all sources and locations equally. Though overall phosphorus loads to Lake Michigan have decreased below the target concentration under the existing binational agreement (Dolan and Chapra 2012), problems with nuisance algae remain in many embayments and near-shore areas (Brooks et al 2015) due to elevated coastal phosphorus (Yurista et al 2015). Algal growth in the nearshore zone is exacerbated by invasive zebra and quagga mussels that capture planktonic nutrients and deposit them on the substrate (Hecky et al 2004, Mosley and Bootsma 2015, Pilcher et al 2017, Rowe et al 2017, but lake hydrodynamics plays a mediating role even in that process (Pilcher et al 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The continuing evolution of regulatory frameworks that set pollutant loading targets offers opportunities to incorporate the hydrodynamics of receiving bodies. A focus on total loads, even when specific to a particular tributary, can inadvertently overlook both pollutant accumulation in the nearshore (Yurista et al 2015) and advection to far-away sites that are critical for coastal ecosystem services (Hoffman and Hittinger 2017). An approach like ours can be used to estimate the spatial and temporal variation in the effective load to the coastal zone under a range of watershed management and climate scenarios, thereby enabling the next generation of regulatory load targets to account for seasonality of both inputs and in-lake processing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…TMDL-type regulatory paradigms often focus on the sources and dynamics of pollution, but they also have the potential to incorporate understanding of how lake physics mediate the propagation of pollutants in space and time within large aquatic ecosystems. The depth and thermal structure of lakes creates three-dimensional heterogeneity in water density that can foster either rapid dilution by mixing or the trapping of a pollutant entering from a particular location (Auer and Gatzke 2004, Makarewicz et al 2012, Yurista et al 2015. Each of the Great Lakes shows a pronounced annual cycle in its thermal structure (Boyce et al 1989, Beletsky andSchwab 2001), changing from vertically mixed in winter to vertically stratified and laterally mixed in summer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lake hydrodynamics intensify the potential impact of watershed pollutants on coastal ecosystem services

Gloege

McKinley

Mooney

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Watersheds deliver numerous pollutants to the coastline of oceans and lakes, thereby jeopardizing ecosystem services. Regulatory frameworks for stressors often focus on loading rates without accounting for the physical dynamics of the receiving water body. Here, we use a three-dimensional hydrodynamic model to simulate the transport of a generic tributary-delivered anthropogenic pollutant within Lake Michigan based on the location and timing of loading. Simulating pollutant plumes from 11 rivers, and their intersections with coastal ecosystem services, reveals strong mediation of potential impacts by lake physics. Trapped pollutants accumulate in nearshore waters during spring peak flows, and become diluted by spreading offshore during the summer. The threat to coastal ecosystem services posed by pollutant loading differs sharply among rivers; high potential impact arises from the spatiotemporal coincidence of tributary input rates, lake mixing dynamics, and multiple human uses of the shoreline. Simultaneous pollution from multiple rivers yields overlapping plumes, creating a second way in which lake hydrodynamics can amplify potential impacts on coastal ecosystem services. Our simulations demonstrate that the physical dynamics of large water bodies can create a dynamic stressor landscape arising from multiple independent sources of non-point-source pollution. The design and implementation of pollution regulations rarely account for spatial and temporal complexities of load processing in receiving waters, yet the resulting variability is likely to strongly mediate impacts on society. As hydrodynamic models improve, our analytical framework could be applied to a wide range of pollutants and waterbodies to enhance the sustainable use of coastal ecosystems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lake hydrodynamics intensify the potential impact of watershed pollutants on coastal ecosystem services

Gloege

McKinley

Mooney

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…Tributary size and dominant land use categories in adjacent catchments have been shown to influence the amount of nutrients delivered to different regions in large lake systems, which can have direct effects on local primary production. (Dillon and Kirchner, 1975;Lougheed et al, 2001;Yurista et al 2015). Similarly, nutrient delivery from shallow embayments has been shown to play an important role in driving primary production within adjacent nearshore regions in the main basins of large lakes (Gikuma-Njuru and Hecky, 2005).…”

Section: Geographic Information Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because the term nearshore has been defined differently in various studies (e.g. Murthy, 2001a, 2001b;Warren et al 2017;Yousef et al, 2014;Yurista et al, 2015), we used two methods to quantify nearshore-offshore gradients: depth contour and distance from shore. Depth contour estimates for chlorophyll concentrations were averaged for 10-m depth intervals starting from the shore and extending to 90 m in depth.…”

Section: Spatiotemporal Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatially heterogeneous trends in nearshore and offshore chlorophyll a concentrations in lakes Michigan and Huron (1998–2013)

et al. 2019

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1. Nutrient abatement programmes have been successfully implemented around the globe to reduce nutrient loading into aquatic ecosystems. Concurrently, the worldwide spread of invasive filter feeders, such as dreissenid mussels, may alter nutrient dynamics in invaded systems by sequestering nutrients away from pelagic zones and reducing primary production in offshore areas. Such is the case in the Laurentian Great Lakes of North America, where decades of nutrient abatement and the establishment of dreissenid mussels have seemingly resulted in more oligotrophic conditions and altered spatial patterns of nutrient availability and primary production.2. Recent studies have focused on whole lake trends in primary production despite spatial differences in tributary inputs, bathymetry, and other environmental conditions that can affect primary production in nearshore areas. Thus, we hypothesised that trends in nearshore chlorophyll concentrations in different areas may diverge in a manner consistent with spatial differences in nutrient input. To evaluate these differences in surface chlorophyll responses, we assessed temporal trends in four different areas of Lake Michigan and three different areas of Lake Huron.3. We hypothesised that in lakes Huron and Michigan, nearshore zones have experienced slower declines of chlorophyll concentrations relative to offshore zones.To assess this hypothesis, we estimated temporal trends of surface water chlorophyll concentrations (a proxy for primary production) from satellite imagery from 1998 to 2013. We calculated average surface chlorophyll concentrations for 10-m depth intervals ranging from the shore (0-10 m) to offshore (>90 m) during representative months of May, July, and September. We then analysed these data to determine if long-term trends in surface chlorophyll varied by season, proximity to the shoreline, and water depth.4. The rates of annual change in chlorophyll concentrations in nearshore areas were markedly different to offshore trends in both lakes. Chlorophyll concentrations declined overtime in offshore areas, but nearshore chlorophyll concentrations were either stable (in May) or increased (in July and September) throughout the time series. | 367 STADIG eT Al.

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Bacterioplankton respond with similar transcriptional activity to allochthonous dissolved organic matter in coastal and offshore Lake Michigan

Chaudhary

Turner

Poretsky

2021

Limnology & Oceanography

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Lake Michigan is one of the largest lakes in the world and the second largest of the North American Great Lakes by volume. Over the last two decades, the lake has witnessed significant ecological changes due to proliferation of invasive quagga mussels into its deeper offshore regions. The impact of these changes on the labile dissolved organic matter pool available for bacterial consumption and the relative importance of terrestrially derived DOM (t‐DOM) for bacterial metabolism across Lake Michigan in the post‐mussel period is poorly understood. Here, we investigated Lake Michigan bacterial community structure and activity in offshore and coastal regions near the mouth of Kalamazoo River, one of the largest tributaries to southern Lake Michigan. In addition, we evaluated short‐term bacterioplankton response to a pulse of t‐DOM (leaf litter leachate) in shipboard mesocosms set up using nearshore and offshore lake‐water. The bacterial community composition and activity for the natural and t‐DOM enriched samples were characterized using combined metagenomics and metatranscriptomics. We observed four‐fold more transcripts for Cyanobacteria in the offshore bacterial community compared to nearshore, highlighting the importance of Cyanobacterial primary production in supporting microbial food web of the oligotrophic offshore. However, despite this and certain differences in DOM related transporter gene transcripts between the two regions, the nearshore and offshore bacterial communities showed a similar response to t‐DOM, primarily in the form of increased transcriptional activity for aromatic compound metabolism. The use of metagenome assembled genomes identified populations within the Bacteroidetes phylum that play an important role in t‐DOM response.

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Lake Michigan: Nearshore variability and a nearshore–offshore distinction in water quality

Cited by 27 publications

References 44 publications

Lake hydrodynamics intensify the potential impact of watershed pollutants on coastal ecosystem services

Lake hydrodynamics intensify the potential impact of watershed pollutants on coastal ecosystem services

Spatially heterogeneous trends in nearshore and offshore chlorophyll a concentrations in lakes Michigan and Huron (1998–2013)

Bacterioplankton respond with similar transcriptional activity to allochthonous dissolved organic matter in coastal and offshore Lake Michigan

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