The Rise and Fall of Plankton: Long-Term Changes in the Vertical Distribution of Algae and Grazers in Lake Baikal, Siberia
Both surface water temperatures and the intensity of thermal stratification have increased recently in large lakes throughout the world. Such physical changes can be accompanied by shifts in plankton community structure, including changes in relative abundances and depth distributions. Here we analy...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3934874 2023-05-15T18:49:41+02:00 The Rise and Fall of Plankton: Long-Term Changes in the Vertical Distribution of Algae and Grazers in Lake Baikal, Siberia Hampton, Stephanie E. Gray, Derek K. Izmest'eva, Lyubov R. Moore, Marianne V. Ozersky, Tedy 2014-02-25 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3934874 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24586441 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0088920 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3934874 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24586441 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0088920 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2014 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0088920 2014-03-09T01:40:41Z Both surface water temperatures and the intensity of thermal stratification have increased recently in large lakes throughout the world. Such physical changes can be accompanied by shifts in plankton community structure, including changes in relative abundances and depth distributions. Here we analyzed 45 years of data from Lake Baikal, the world's oldest, deepest, and most voluminous lake, to assess long-term trends in the depth distribution of pelagic phytoplankton and zooplankton. Surface water temperatures in Lake Baikal increased steadily between 1955 and 2000, resulting in a stronger thermal gradient within the top 50 m of the water column. In conjunction with these physical changes our analyses reveal significant shifts in the daytime depth distribution of important phytoplankton and zooplankton groups. The relatively heavy diatoms, which often rely on mixing to remain suspended in the photic zone, shifted downward in the water column by 1.90 m y-1, while the depths of other phytoplankton groups did not change significantly. Over the same time span the density-weighted average depth of most major zooplankton groups, including cladocerans, rotifers, and immature copepods, exhibited rapid shifts toward shallower positions (0.57–0.75 m y−1). As a result of these depth changes the vertical overlap between herbivorous copepods (Epischura baikalensis) and their algal food appears to have increased through time while that for cladocerans decreased. We hypothesize that warming surface waters and reduced mixing caused these ecological changes. Future studies should examine how changes in the vertical distribution of plankton might impact energy flow in this lake and others. Text Copepods Siberia PubMed Central (PMC) PLoS ONE 9 2 e88920 |
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Research Article Hampton, Stephanie E. Gray, Derek K. Izmest'eva, Lyubov R. Moore, Marianne V. Ozersky, Tedy The Rise and Fall of Plankton: Long-Term Changes in the Vertical Distribution of Algae and Grazers in Lake Baikal, Siberia |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
Both surface water temperatures and the intensity of thermal stratification have increased recently in large lakes throughout the world. Such physical changes can be accompanied by shifts in plankton community structure, including changes in relative abundances and depth distributions. Here we analyzed 45 years of data from Lake Baikal, the world's oldest, deepest, and most voluminous lake, to assess long-term trends in the depth distribution of pelagic phytoplankton and zooplankton. Surface water temperatures in Lake Baikal increased steadily between 1955 and 2000, resulting in a stronger thermal gradient within the top 50 m of the water column. In conjunction with these physical changes our analyses reveal significant shifts in the daytime depth distribution of important phytoplankton and zooplankton groups. The relatively heavy diatoms, which often rely on mixing to remain suspended in the photic zone, shifted downward in the water column by 1.90 m y-1, while the depths of other phytoplankton groups did not change significantly. Over the same time span the density-weighted average depth of most major zooplankton groups, including cladocerans, rotifers, and immature copepods, exhibited rapid shifts toward shallower positions (0.57–0.75 m y−1). As a result of these depth changes the vertical overlap between herbivorous copepods (Epischura baikalensis) and their algal food appears to have increased through time while that for cladocerans decreased. We hypothesize that warming surface waters and reduced mixing caused these ecological changes. Future studies should examine how changes in the vertical distribution of plankton might impact energy flow in this lake and others. |
format |
Text |
author |
Hampton, Stephanie E. Gray, Derek K. Izmest'eva, Lyubov R. Moore, Marianne V. Ozersky, Tedy |
author_facet |
Hampton, Stephanie E. Gray, Derek K. Izmest'eva, Lyubov R. Moore, Marianne V. Ozersky, Tedy |
author_sort |
Hampton, Stephanie E. |
title |
The Rise and Fall of Plankton: Long-Term Changes in the Vertical Distribution of Algae and Grazers in Lake Baikal, Siberia |
title_short |
The Rise and Fall of Plankton: Long-Term Changes in the Vertical Distribution of Algae and Grazers in Lake Baikal, Siberia |
title_full |
The Rise and Fall of Plankton: Long-Term Changes in the Vertical Distribution of Algae and Grazers in Lake Baikal, Siberia |
title_fullStr |
The Rise and Fall of Plankton: Long-Term Changes in the Vertical Distribution of Algae and Grazers in Lake Baikal, Siberia |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Rise and Fall of Plankton: Long-Term Changes in the Vertical Distribution of Algae and Grazers in Lake Baikal, Siberia |
title_sort |
rise and fall of plankton: long-term changes in the vertical distribution of algae and grazers in lake baikal, siberia |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3934874 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24586441 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0088920 |
genre |
Copepods Siberia |
genre_facet |
Copepods Siberia |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3934874 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24586441 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0088920 |
op_rights |
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0088920 |
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PLoS ONE |
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9 |
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2 |
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e88920 |
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