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Local and Regional Drivers of Environmental Changes in Two Subtropical Montane Ponds (Central China) Over the Last Two Centuries

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Abstract

Central China, one of the Earth’s distinctive ecoregions due to its endemic subtropical biota, has been subjected to enhanced nitrogen deposition and climate warming during recent decades. However, the extent and timescale of ecological changes are largely unexplored. Multiproxy analyses (diatoms, photosynthetic pigments and geochemistry) of 210Pb-dated sediment cores from two shallow ponds within an alpine basin (central China) were used to investigate the response of primary producer communities to external stressors during the last two centuries. The study sites include one drainage pond and one seepage pond. Both ponds exhibited unambiguous changes in production and composition of photoautotrophs since the early twentieth century, which are linked to climate warming, nitrogen deposition and local factors (for example, lake morphometry, desiccation and macrophyte). Although primary producers responded to regional warming and nitrogen deposition, the ecological responses differed among ponds due to local factors. In the deeper seepage pond, light attenuation due to terrestrial organic matter input caused recent decreases in carotenoids and small fragilarioid taxa. In contrast, the co-occurrence of euterrestrial and tychoplanktonic diatoms in the shallower drainage pond was indicative of its hydrological instability. Our results indicate that subtropical montane ponds in the East Asian monsoon region appear to be strongly influenced by a combination of local (for example, catchment-lake connectivity) and regional driving forces (for example, warming and nitrogen deposition).

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modified from the maps downloaded from http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/asia.html and Google Earth, respectively.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41572343). We acknowledge Teresa Needham, Zhang Zhiqi, Huang Xianyu, Qiao Qianglong, Zhang Yiming, Zhang Zhou, Liang Jia, Xia Weilan, Song Huyue, Ji Junliang, Jiang ying and Ji Jing for field and laboratory assistance. We are grateful to anonymous reviewers and the subject-matter editor Dr. James Elser for their constructive comments. This work is dedicated affectionately to Xu’s father Mr. Chen Xianci.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, School of Geography and Information Engineering, China University of Geosciences, 388 Lumo Road, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei Province, China

    Xu Chen, Jia Peng, Ting Zheng & Xue Bai

  2. School of Geography, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK

    Suzanne McGowan & Linghan Zeng

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  1. Xu Chen
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  2. Suzanne McGowan
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  3. Jia Peng
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Correspondence to Xu Chen.

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Author Contributions XC and SM conceived and designed the study. XC, SM, JP, TZ, XB, and LZ collected and analysed the data. XC and SM wrote the manuscript.

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Chen, X., McGowan, S., Peng, J. et al. Local and Regional Drivers of Environmental Changes in Two Subtropical Montane Ponds (Central China) Over the Last Two Centuries. Ecosystems 24, 565–582 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-020-00535-2

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