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Eutrophication erodes inter-basin variation in macrophytes and co-occurring invertebrates in a shallow lake: combining ecology and palaeoecology

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Abstract

Aquatic biodiversity is commonly linked with environmental variation in lake networks, but less is known about how local factors may influence within-lake biological heterogeneity. Using a combined ecological and multi-proxy palaeoecological approach we investigated long-term changes in the pathways and processes that underlie eutrophication and water depth effects on lake macrophyte and invertebrate communities across three basins in a shallow lake—Castle Lough, Northern Ireland, UK. Contemporary data allow us to assess how macrophyte assemblages vary in composition and heterogeneity according to basin-specific factors (e.g. variation in water depth), while palaeoecological data (macrophytes and co-occurring invertebrates) enable us to infer basin-specific impacts and susceptibilities to nutrient-enrichment. Results indicate that variability in water depth promotes assemblage variation amongst the lake basins, stimulating within-lake macrophyte assemblage heterogeneity and hence higher lake biodiversity. The palaeo-data indicate that eutrophication has acted as a strong homogenising agent of macrophyte and invertebrate diversities and abundances over time at the whole-lake scale. This novel finding strongly suggests that, as eutrophication advances, the influence of water depth on community heterogeneity is gradually eroded and that ultimately a limited set of eutrophication-tolerant species will become homogeneously distributed across the entire lake.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Department of Zoology of The Natural History Museum, London for funding this work as part of J. Salgado’s Ph.D. A Hugh Cary Gilson Memorial Award from the Freshwater Biological Association provided support for fieldwork. We also thank the Departamento Administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación-COLCINECIAS for supporting J. Salgado under the postdoctoral program “Es tiempo de volver”. T.A. Davidson’s contribution was supported by CIRCE funding under the AU ideas programme. We especially thank the Castle Lough landowners for site access and hospitality, G. Simpson for statistical analysis advice, I. Jones and N. Willby for constructive suggestions and P. Bexell and L. Petetti for fieldwork assistance. We also thank the EU FP7 Project Biofresh (Biodiversity of Freshwater Ecosystems: Status, Trends, Pressures, and Conservation Priorities) Contract No. 226874 for financial support for sediment core dating analysis.

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  1. Jorge Salgado

    Present address: Laboratorio de Palinología y Paleoecología Tropical, Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de Los Andes, Carrera Primera # 18A - 12, Bogotá, Colombia

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK

    Jorge Salgado, Stephen J. Brooks & Beth Okamura

  2. Environmental Change Research Centre, Department of Geography, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

    Jorge Salgado & Carl D. Sayer

  3. Lake Group, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Silkeborg, Denmark

    Thomas A. Davidson

  4. Department of Bioscience, Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Aarhus, Denmark

    Thomas A. Davidson

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  1. Jorge Salgado
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Correspondence to Jorge Salgado.

Electronic supplementary material

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10933_2017_9950_MOESM1_ESM.eps

Figure ESM1. Radiometric chronologies and sedimentation rates for cores (a) NCAS1; (b) NCAS2; and (c) NCAS3 (EPS 723 kb)

10933_2017_9950_MOESM2_ESM.eps

Figure ESM2. Boxplot of (a) depth variation between basins; (b) Macrophyte average distance to centroid group and perMANOVA (F = 13.414, P = 0.001) and HMD (F = 7.87, P = 0.001) results; (c) Depth distance to centroid group and perMANOVA (F = 137.84, P = 0.001) and HMD (F = 93.155, P < 0.001) results (EPS 329 kb)

10933_2017_9950_MOESM3_ESM.eps

Figure ESM3. Logistic regressions on presence/absence data of macrophyte species sensitive to eutrophication across the observed depth profiles. (a) Chara globularis; (b) Myriophyllum verticillatum; (c) Stratiotes aloides (EPS 1072 kb)

10933_2017_9950_MOESM4_ESM.eps

Figure ESM4. Spatiotemporal maps showing K-means partition of (a) Plant macrofossils, (b) Chironomids; (c) Molluscs; (d) Bryozoans; and (e) Daphnid assemblages in the cores NCAS1, NCAS2 and NCAS3. Simple structure index (ssi) is indicated on the right-hand side of each map. Selected number of groups by ssi is indicated with a bold black circle (EPS 5041 kb)

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Salgado, J., Sayer, C.D., Brooks, S.J. et al. Eutrophication erodes inter-basin variation in macrophytes and co-occurring invertebrates in a shallow lake: combining ecology and palaeoecology. J Paleolimnol 60, 311–328 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-017-9950-6

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