MULTIPLE MECHANISMS DRIVE WIDESPREAD EUTROPHICATION OF CANADIAN PRAIRIE LAKES ALONG BROAD ENVIRONMENTAL GRADIENTS AND SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL SCALES
Canadian Prairie lakes exist along broad climatic and hydrological gradients, and exhibit a wide range of physical, chemical, and biological characteristics. Similarly, these lakes are subject to diverse environmental stressors including agricultural intensification (crops, livestock), urbanization, industrial water extraction, exposure to novel pollutants, and shoreline development. The effects of these stressors vary with proximity to the basin, hydrological connectivity, management strategy, climate variability, and disturbance history. Despite this diversity, many prairie lakes are experiencing symptoms of water quality degradation, including increased blooms of toxic cyanobacteria, deep-water anoxia, macrophyte loss, and sudden fish mortality. Through the use of multiple lines of investigation including paleolimnology, long-term environmental monitoring, experiments, and remote sensing, this talk highlights how varying environmental mechanisms, antecedent lake conditions, and climatic milieu conspire to degrade water quality across prairie lakes that vary greatly in morphology, trophic status, landscape connectivity, and disturbance history. Results of these studies call attention to the difficulty in forecasting unique responses of individual lakes to multiple changing stressors, particularly under unequal management scenarios. We highlight that strategies to protect or improve focal ecosystems can have unanticipated consequences for other lakes, and that landscape-scale management is likely needed to protect aquatic ecosystems on the northern Great Plains.
Primary Presenter: Cale Gushulak, University of Madison-Wisconsin (gushulak@wisc.edu)
Authors:
Cale Gushulak, University of Wisconsin-Madison (gushulak@wisc.edu)
Liam Numrich, University of Regina (liam.numrich@gmail.com)
Amir Chegoonian, University of Regina (amirmasoud.chegoonian@uregina.ca)
Stefano Mezzini, University of British Columbia (stefano.mezzini@ubc.ca)
Kathleen Laird, Queen's University (lairdk@queensu.ca)
Brian Cumming, Queen's University (cummingb@queensu.ca)
Kerri Finlay, University of Regina (kerri.finlay@uregina.ca)
Peter Leavitt, University of Regina (peter.leavitt@uregina.ca)
MULTIPLE MECHANISMS DRIVE WIDESPREAD EUTROPHICATION OF CANADIAN PRAIRIE LAKES ALONG BROAD ENVIRONMENTAL GRADIENTS AND SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL SCALES
Category
Scientific Sessions > SS16 - Understanding Aquatic Ecosystem Health in a Changing World
Description
Time: 09:00 AM
Date: 6/6/2024
Room: Hall of Ideas I