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Temporarily and frequently occurring summer stratification and its effects on nutrient dynamics, greenhouse gas emission and fish habitat use: case study from Lake Ormstrup (Denmark)

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Abstract

Temporary summer stratification is probably a common, but easily overlooked phenomenon in many shallow lakes, because short-term temperature stratification and mixing events are not easily discovered by routine samplings. We used two years of high frequency measurements and monitoring of 5-m deep and hypereutrophic Lake Ormstrup, Denmark to study the dynamics of temporary stratification and its effects on oxygen concentrations, nutrient cycling, greenhouse gas emissions and fish habitat use. Temporary stratification followed by complete mixing of the water column occurred several times each summer, but its duration was highly variable between years despite only small climatic variations. Anoxia at depths greater than 2–3 m developed within a few days after stratification. During anoxia fish accumulated in the upper 2 m and high accumulation of phosphate (up to 1.34 mg/l), ammonia (up to 2.32 mg/l) and greenhouse gases (methane up to 5 mg/l) occurred at depths greater than 2–3 m that were released at mixing. Lake Ormstrup is an example of how very dynamic, unpredictable, and variable mixing conditions develop each summer with significant implications for fish habitat use, nutrient dynamics and greenhouse gas emissions. This might adjust our view of these lakes in a management and climate change perspective.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by funding from the Poul Due Jensen Foundation and was inspired by the projects in Lake Ormstrup and by the AU Centre for Water Technology (watec.au.dk). Thomas Davidson was supported by Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond Natur og Univers project GREENLAKES (No. 9040-00195B) and by PONDERFUL—POND Ecosystems for Resilient FUture Landscapes in a changing climate (Grant agreement ID: 869296) H2020 LC-CLA-2018-2019-2020). We are grateful to Anne Mette Poulsen and Tinna Christensen for editorial and layout assistance.

Funding

Funding was provided by Poul Due Jensens Fond, Centre for Water Technology, Aarhus University, Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond (Grant Nos. 9040-00195B, 869296).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecoscience, Aarhus University, C. F. Møllers Alle 4-6, 8000, Aarhus C, Denmark

    Martin Søndergaard, Anders Nielsen & Thomas Alexander Davidson

  2. Sino-Danish Centre for Education and Research, Beijing, China

    Martin Søndergaard

  3. Section for Freshwater Fisheries and Ecology, National Institute of Aquatic Resources, (DTU Aqua), Technical University of Denmark, Silkeborg, Denmark

    Christian Skov & Henrik Baktoft

  4. Department of Biology, Southern Danish University, Odense, Denmark

    Kasper Reitzel & Theis Kragh

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  1. Martin Søndergaard
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  2. Anders Nielsen
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  7. Thomas Alexander Davidson
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Contributions

The study was initially conceived by Martin Søndergaard (MS) with later input from Thomas Alexander Davidson (TAD) and Anders Nielsen (AN) who also commented on the manuscript. Christian Skov (CS) and Henrik Baktoft (HS) provided fish data and commented the manuscript, Kasper Reitzel (KR) and Theis Kragh (TK) provided sediment data and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Martin Søndergaard.

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Søndergaard, M., Nielsen, A., Skov, C. et al. Temporarily and frequently occurring summer stratification and its effects on nutrient dynamics, greenhouse gas emission and fish habitat use: case study from Lake Ormstrup (Denmark). Hydrobiologia 850, 65–79 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-022-05039-9

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