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Prevalence of Autotrophy in Non-humic African Lakes

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Abstract

Heterotrophic respiration of organic matter (OM) is thought to dominate over aquatic primary production (PP) in most freshwater lake ecosystems. This paradigm implies that lateral transport of OM from the terrestrial biosphere subsidize the major fraction of aquatic respiration and that many lakes are a net source of carbon dioxide (CO2) to atmosphere. Nevertheless, African lakes were absent of the datasets upon which this paradigm was built. Here, we report a comprehensive and methodologically consistent data set of pelagic PP and community respiration (CR) obtained over the last decade in contrasting non-humic African lakes including 5 of the East African Great lakes (Tanganyika, Kivu, Edward, Albert, Victoria) and smaller shallow lakes located in Eastern Africa. Also, we determined the partial pressure of CO2 in surface waters and examined the sources and dynamics of organic and inorganic carbon by means of stable isotope tools across a wide range of physical and chemical conditions and productivity status. Our observations revealed that the threshold value at which the equivalence between PP and CR is met is substantially lower in Africa (10 mmol C m−3 d−1) than at higher latitude (25 mmol C m−3 d−1), suggesting that non-humic African lakes tend to be more autotrophic than expected from empirical relationships derived from data collected in boreal and temperate regions. Integrated at the regional scale, we estimate that PP is about 20 times higher than the organic carbon burial in sediments. It implies that a large fraction (< 90%) of PP is effectively recycled in the warm water column of non-humic African lakes.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to crews of RV Hammerkop and the Maman Benita for support during the sampling expeditions in Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika, to the team from the Institut Supérieur Pédagogique Bukavu for help during the sampling in Lake Kivu, to the Katwe marine police officers, Angela Nankabirwa and Erina Nabafu for help during sampling in Lakes Edward and George and Western Uganda lakes, to Marc-Vincent Commarieu, Bruno Leporcq, Zita Kelemen and Yannick Stroobandt for analytical support. This work was funded by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO, HIPE project, BR/154/A1/HIPE, and EAGLES project, SD/AR/02A), by the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS, LAVIGAS project, contract T.0156.18, and TANGAGAS project) and by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (AGLOM project CGL2010-11556-E). Field expeditions were supported by FNRS with travel grants awarded to AVB, by the Fonds Agathon de Potter with travel grants awarded to CM and LD, by the Fonds Leopold III with a travel grant awarded to LD and by the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (FWO-Vlaanderen, Belgium) with travel grants awarded to CM and SB. HS was supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento e Pesquisa Tecnológica (CNPq productivity grant 303906/2021-9). CM and LD are post-doctoral researchers at the FNRS, and AVB is a Research Director at the FNRS.

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Author notes

  1. CM, AVB and SB conceived and designed the study. CM, AVB, LD, HS performed the experiments. All co-authors contributed to the data analysis. CM drafted the manuscript with inputs from all co-authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemical Oceanography Unit, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium

    Cédric Morana, Alberto V. Borges, Loris Deirmendjian & Jean-Pierre Descy

  2. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, KULeuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Cédric Morana & Steven Bouillon

  3. Géosciences Environnement Toulouse (GET, CNRS, IRD), Université de Toulouse Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France

    Loris Deirmendjian

  4. Limnology Unit, National Fisheries Resources Research Institute, Jinja, Uganda

    William Okello

  5. Departamento de Hidrobiologia, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, São Carlos, Brazil

    Hugo Sarmento

  6. Tanzania Fisheries Research Institute, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

    Ismael A. Kimirei

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  1. Cédric Morana
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Correspondence to Cédric Morana.

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Morana, C., Borges, A.V., Deirmendjian, L. et al. Prevalence of Autotrophy in Non-humic African Lakes. Ecosystems 26, 627–642 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-022-00783-4

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