Acceleration of cyanobacterial dominance in north temperate-subarctic lakes during the Anthropocene

Increases in atmospheric temperature and nutrients from land are thought to be promoting the expansion of harmful cyanobacteria in lakes worldwide, yet to date there has been no quantitative synthesis of long‐term trends. To test whether cyanobacteria have increased in abundance over the past ~ 200 ...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology letters 2015-04, Vol.18 (4), p.375-384
Main Authors: Taranu, Zofia E., Gregory-Eaves, Irene, Leavitt, Peter R., Bunting, Lynda, Buchaca, Teresa, Catalan, Jordi, Domaizon, Isabelle, Guilizzoni, Piero, Lami, Andrea, McGowan, Suzanne, Moorhouse, Heather, Morabito, Giuseppe, Pick, Frances R., Stevenson, Mark A., Thompson, Patrick L., Vinebrooke, Rolf D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algae
Anthropocene
Biodiversity and Ecology
Biomass
Climate Change
cyanobacteria
Cyanobacteria - classification
Cyanobacteria - growth & development
Environmental Sciences
eutrophication
Fresh Water - chemistry
Fresh Water - microbiology
Freshwater
Geologic Sediments - microbiology
Lakes
Lakes - chemistry
Lakes - microbiology
long-term trends
meta-analysis
Models, Theoretical
Nitrogen - analysis
Paleoecology
paleolimnology
Phosphorus - analysis
regression tree
Temperature
Time Factors
Xanthophylls - analysis
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Increases in atmospheric temperature and nutrients from land are thought to be promoting the expansion of harmful cyanobacteria in lakes worldwide, yet to date there has been no quantitative synthesis of long‐term trends. To test whether cyanobacteria have increased in abundance over the past ~ 200 years and evaluate the relative influence of potential causal mechanisms, we synthesised 108 highly resolved sedimentary time series and 18 decadal‐scale monitoring records from north temperate‐subarctic lakes. We demonstrate that: (1) cyanobacteria have increased significantly since c. 1800 ce, (2) they have increased disproportionately relative to other phytoplankton, and (3) cyanobacteria increased more rapidly post c. 1945 ce. Variation among lakes in the rates of increase was explained best by nutrient concentration (phosphorus and nitrogen), and temperature was of secondary importance. Although cyanobacterial biomass has declined in some managed lakes with reduced nutrient influx, the larger spatio‐temporal scale of sedimentary records show continued increases in cyanobacteria throughout the north temperate‐subarctic regions.
ISSN:1461-023X
1461-0248
DOI:10.1111/ele.12420