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Transition zones in small lakes: the importance of dilution and biological uptake on lake-wide heterogeneity

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Abstract

Stream inflows are frequently the dominant route for nutrients from catchments to lakes. Studies on large, deep reservoirs and lakes have shown the importance of the fate of inflow plumes for nutrient accessibility to phytoplankton. However, few studies have considered shallow water transition zones between streams and lakes, often a feature of small lakes. This study examined the spatial and temporal dynamics of phosphorus in a shallow stream-lake transition in a small lake to improve our understanding of how phosphorus reaches the pelagic zone. Despite the high discharge levels, and the importance of dilution in explaining observed spatial gradients in soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP), total phosphorus (TP) and chlorophyll a, we found evidence for significant biological uptake of SRP in the inflow embayment during the growing season. This may represent an additional mechanism for the dispersal of phosphorus from the embayment into the lake. The length scale for the transition zone was short (~150 m) which indicated that the direct influence of the inflow on the wider lake was small. However, SRP measurements taken only from the pelagic site underestimated mean lake-wide concentrations when including transition zones by up to 18% during the growing season.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Ruth and Tom Hansard, Elizabeth Hurrell, Daniel Wright, Fanghua Li and Brian Foley for assistance with fieldwork; Jack Kelly and Martin Rouen for technical assistance with the datalogger and Minitracka; Clive Woods and Kathryn Hockenhull for assistance with the total phosphorus analysis and Gemma Davies for advice on ESRI ArcMap. Finally, we are also grateful to the Environment Agency of England and Wales for provision of the discharge data. The project was funded by a PhD studentship awarded to E. B. Mackay from the Science and Technology Faculty at Lancaster University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Sustainable Water Management, Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, UK

    Eleanor B. Mackay & Andrew M. Folkard

  2. Lake Ecosystem Group, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Lancaster Environment Centre, Bailrigg, Lancaster, LA1 4AP, UK

    Eleanor B. Mackay, Ian D. Jones & Stephen J. Thackeray

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  1. Eleanor B. Mackay
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Correspondence to Eleanor B. Mackay.

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Mackay, E.B., Jones, I.D., Folkard, A.M. et al. Transition zones in small lakes: the importance of dilution and biological uptake on lake-wide heterogeneity. Hydrobiologia 678, 85–97 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-011-0825-y

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