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Lacustrine responses to middle and late Holocene anthropogenic activities in the northern tropical Andes

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Abstract

A multi-proxy study on a sediment core from Pedro Palo Lake, a mid-altitude endorheic Andean Lake in northern South America, was carried out to understand the effects of human activities and climate variability on tropical mountain freshwater ecosystems. Results indicate that between ~ 7980 and 4110 cal year BP the lake maintained well-mixed, mesotrophic conditions, within which a diverse planktonic and benthic diatom community flourished. From 4110 to about 2050 cal year BP, benthic diatoms almost disappeared, and the planktonic community changed to include small Discostella spp. and large Fragilaria species, suggesting higher nutrient concentrations and possibly, more turbid waters. At this time, peaks in charcoal concentration and in the sedimentary C/N ratio imply that forest fires in the watershed intensified and that more organic matter, derived from terrestrial vegetation, accumulated in the lake. This period coincides with an increase in population, and in the social, technological and agricultural complexity of indigenous peoples. We propose that anthropogenic activities, burning and deforestation, increased the nutrient load to the lake causing the observed changes in the diatom communities. After 2050 cal year BP, periphytic diatoms returned, the intensity and frequency of fires diminished, and a secondary forest grew. We infer an associated decrease in nutrients, resulting from reforestation and/or lower water levels caused by drier climates. Estimations based on the age model of the core suggest that it took approximately 30 years for the lake to change from its most degraded state in the middle Holocene to its state in the late Holocene. However, the much-reduced diversity of the diatom community after ~ 2050 cal year BP indicates that the lake did not rebound to its previous middle Holocene conditions. The record from Pedro Palo is therefore a good example of the detrimental and long-lasting effects of anthropic deforestation.

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Acknowledgements

The coring of Pedro Palo was financed by an Intra-European Marie Curie Fellowships (MEIF-CT-2005-024625) for LB. The authors thank Sandrine Canal for her help in charcoal counting. The 14C ages were acquired thanks to the national program ARTEMIS program (INSU CNRS) at Saclay 14C measurement laboratory (LMC14). NSERC Funds to M. Vélez. N. González was supported by Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología de Colombia COLCIENCIAS (679/2015). We thank UR International Office from the University of Regina for their financial support regarding K. McKenzie’s visit to the high plains of Bogotá, and Jorge Salgado and Catalina Gonzalez from UNiandes for their support in Bogotá during this visit. We thank N. Hoyos for providing the map in Fig. 1. We are thankful to Dr. Jeffrey Stone for his helpful and constructive revisions and to an anonymous reviewer for very thoughtful suggestions.

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  1. Department of Geology, University of Regina, Regina, SK, S4S 0A2, Canada

    M. I. Vélez & K. MacKenzie

  2. School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK

    A. Boom, N. Gonzalez, A. S. Carr & J. C. Berrio

  3. Institut des Sciences de L’Evolution de Montpellier (ISEM), EPHE, CNRS, IRD, CC 065, PSL Research University, Université de Montpellier, 34095, Montpellier, France

    L. Bremond

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Vélez, M.I., MacKenzie, K., Boom, A. et al. Lacustrine responses to middle and late Holocene anthropogenic activities in the northern tropical Andes. J Paleolimnol 65, 123–136 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-020-00152-y

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