Abundance and morphometry changes across the high‐mountain lake‐size gradient in the tropical Andes of Southern Ecuador

• Published in: Water resources research 2017-08, Vol.53 (8), p.7269-7280
• Main Authors: Mosquera, Pablo V., Hampel, Henrietta, Vázquez, Raúl F., Alonso, Miguel, Catalan, Jordi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Abundance; Andes; Area; Bathymetry; Biogeochemistry; Dynamics; Ecological function; Geomorphology; High altitude; lake; Lakes; Metapopulations; Morphometry; mountain; Mountain lakes; Mountain regions; pond; Ponds; Power law; Renewal; Scaling; Surveying; tropical; Tropical climate; Water resources
• ISSN: 0043-1397; 1944-7973
• DOI: 10.1002/2017WR020902

The number, size, and shape of lakes are key determinants of the ecological functionality of a lake district. The lake area scaling relationships with lake number and volume enable upscaling biogeochemical processes and spatially considering organisms' metapopulation dynamics. These relationships vary regionally depending on the geomorphological context, particularly in the range of lake area 104 m2 and 50% of the water resources are held in a few ones (∼10) deeper than 18 m. Therefore, midlakes and large lakes are by far more biogeochemically relevant than ponds and shallow lakes in this tropical mountain lake district. Key Points The tropical high‐mountain lakes show power‐law lake‐size distributions truncated at both ends similar to those found in temperate ranges The marked relief limits the size of the largest lakes at high altitudes, whereas ponds are particularly prompt to a complete infilling Lake volume scales to lake area according to a larger coefficient than found in other lake areas of glacial origin but gentle relief