TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessing the hierarchy of long-term environmental controls on diatom communities of Yellowstone National Park using lacustrine sediment records
AU - Chraïbi, Victoria L.Shaw
AU - Fritz, Sherilyn C.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 North American Lake Management Society.
PY - 2020/7/2
Y1 - 2020/7/2
N2 - Chraïbi VLS, Fritz SC. 2020. Assessing the hierarchy of long-term environmental controls on diatom communities of Yellowstone National Park using lacustrine sediment records. Lake Reserv Manage. 36:278–296. An ecosystem’s ability to maintain structure and function following disturbance, defined as resilience, is influenced by a hierarchy of environmental controls, including climate, surface cover, and ecological relationships that shape biological community composition and productivity. This study examined lacustrine sediment records of naturally fishless lakes in Yellowstone National Park to reconstruct the response of aquatic communities to climate and trophic cascades from fish stocking. Sediment records of diatom algae did not exhibit a distinct response to fish stocking in terms of assemblage or algal productivity. Instead, 3 of 4 lakes underwent a shift to dominance by benthic diatom species from 1935 to 1950, which suggests lower lake levels resulting from warmer, drier climatic conditions. The lake that did not undergo such a shift is fed by groundwater rather than snowmelt, suggesting a buffering effect by water source. Dissimilarity analysis shows that the diatom assemblages in all 4 lakes have become increasingly dissimilar since circa 1955, suggesting that communities have not yet stabilized from the first-order influence of climate. Thus, climate likely had a more prominent influence on diatom community structure than did manipulation of the fish community. Understanding the relative importance and interplay among abiotic and biotic stressors and the resultant resilience of an ecosystem provides implications for the adaptive management of lakes.
AB - Chraïbi VLS, Fritz SC. 2020. Assessing the hierarchy of long-term environmental controls on diatom communities of Yellowstone National Park using lacustrine sediment records. Lake Reserv Manage. 36:278–296. An ecosystem’s ability to maintain structure and function following disturbance, defined as resilience, is influenced by a hierarchy of environmental controls, including climate, surface cover, and ecological relationships that shape biological community composition and productivity. This study examined lacustrine sediment records of naturally fishless lakes in Yellowstone National Park to reconstruct the response of aquatic communities to climate and trophic cascades from fish stocking. Sediment records of diatom algae did not exhibit a distinct response to fish stocking in terms of assemblage or algal productivity. Instead, 3 of 4 lakes underwent a shift to dominance by benthic diatom species from 1935 to 1950, which suggests lower lake levels resulting from warmer, drier climatic conditions. The lake that did not undergo such a shift is fed by groundwater rather than snowmelt, suggesting a buffering effect by water source. Dissimilarity analysis shows that the diatom assemblages in all 4 lakes have become increasingly dissimilar since circa 1955, suggesting that communities have not yet stabilized from the first-order influence of climate. Thus, climate likely had a more prominent influence on diatom community structure than did manipulation of the fish community. Understanding the relative importance and interplay among abiotic and biotic stressors and the resultant resilience of an ecosystem provides implications for the adaptive management of lakes.
KW - Climate change
KW - Yellowstone National Park
KW - diatoms
KW - fish stocking
KW - paleolimnology
KW - resilience
KW - trophic cascade
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85085355811&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1080/10402381.2020.1752863
DO - 10.1080/10402381.2020.1752863
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85085355811
SN - 1040-2381
VL - 36
SP - 278
EP - 296
JO - Lake and Reservoir Management
JF - Lake and Reservoir Management
IS - 3
ER -