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Relationships between environmental variables and zooplankton subfossils in the surface sediments of 36 shallow coastal brackish lakes with special emphasis on the role of fish

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Abstract

Subfossil zooplankton assemblages (Cladocera 22 taxa, Rotifera 1 taxon) were identified from the surface sediments of 36 shallow (median depth = 0.7 m) Danish coastal brackish lakes differing in epilimnic salinity (SAL, range 0.2–17.4‰), summer-mean total phosphorus (TP, 27–327 μg l−1) and total nitrogen (TN, 0.850–2.629 mg l−1), as well as in submerged macrophyte coverage and planktivorous fish density (PL-CPUE). Cladoceran species richness declined significantly with increasing SAL, TP and TN, while no significant correlation was found to either PL-CPUE, macrophyte coverage or lake surface area. Bonferroni-adjusted forward selection within canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) showed that 22.1% of the variation in zooplankton data was explained by PL-CPUE, SAL and TP uniquely; each variable explaining an almost equally significant amount of variation in the zooplankton data. Predictive models to infer PL-CPUE, SAL and TP were developed using variance weighted-averaging (WA) procedures. Almost similar values of boot-strapped coefficient of determination (r2boot-strapped 0.22–0.38) were produced by the WA inference models of PL-CPUE, SAL and TP, while the inference models of TP produced the lowest boot-strapped root-mean-squared-error of prediction (RMSEPboot-strapped 0.29–0.36 log(TP + 1), μg l−1). Yet, zooplankton TP and SAL optima (WA) were strongly correlated (r2 = 0.46), while PL-CPUE optima (WA) were independent of both TP and SAL optima, indicating that only the PL-CPUE inference models are suitable for making reconstructions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Freshwater Ecology, National Environmental Research Institute, Vejlsøvej 25, DK-8600, Silkeborg, Denmark

    Susanne Lildal Amsinck, Erik Jeppesen & Frank Landkildehus

  2. Department of Plant Biology, University of Aarhus, Nordlandsvej 68, DK-8240, Risskov, Denmark

    Susanne Lildal Amsinck & Erik Jeppesen

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  1. Susanne Lildal Amsinck
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  2. Erik Jeppesen
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Correspondence to Susanne Lildal Amsinck.

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Amsinck, S., Jeppesen, E. & Landkildehus, F. Relationships between environmental variables and zooplankton subfossils in the surface sediments of 36 shallow coastal brackish lakes with special emphasis on the role of fish. J Paleolimnol 33, 39–51 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-004-0504-3

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