Climate Change Forces New Ecological States in Tropical Andean Lakes
Air temperatures in the tropical Andes have risen at an accelerated rate relative to the global average over recent decades. However, the effects of climate change on Andean lakes, which are vital to sustaining regional biodiversity and serve as an important water resource to local populations, rema...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4315470 2023-05-15T15:07:39+02:00 Climate Change Forces New Ecological States in Tropical Andean Lakes Michelutti, Neal Wolfe, Alexander P. Cooke, Colin A. Hobbs, William O. Vuille, Mathias Smol, John P. 2015-02-03 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4315470 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25647018 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115338 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25647018 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115338 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 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 2015 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115338 2015-02-15T00:58:40Z Air temperatures in the tropical Andes have risen at an accelerated rate relative to the global average over recent decades. However, the effects of climate change on Andean lakes, which are vital to sustaining regional biodiversity and serve as an important water resource to local populations, remain largely unknown. Here, we show that recent climate changes have forced alpine lakes of the equatorial Andes towards new ecological and physical states, in close synchrony to the rapid shrinkage of glaciers regionally. Using dated sediment cores from three lakes in the southern Sierra of Ecuador, we record abrupt increases in the planktonic thalassiosiroid diatom Discostella stelligera from trace abundances to dominance within the phytoplankton. This unprecedented shift occurs against the backdrop of rising temperatures, changing atmospheric pressure fields, and declining wind speeds. Ecological restructuring in these lakes is linked to warming and/or enhanced water column stratification. In contrast to seasonally ice-covered Arctic and temperate alpine counterparts, aquatic production has not increased universally with warming, and has even declined in some lakes, possibly because enhanced thermal stability impedes the re-circulation of hypolimnetic nutrients to surface waters. Our results demonstrate that these lakes have already passed important ecological thresholds, with potentially far-reaching consequences for Andean water resources. Text Arctic Climate change Phytoplankton PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic PLOS ONE 10 2 e0115338 |
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Research Article Michelutti, Neal Wolfe, Alexander P. Cooke, Colin A. Hobbs, William O. Vuille, Mathias Smol, John P. Climate Change Forces New Ecological States in Tropical Andean Lakes |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
Air temperatures in the tropical Andes have risen at an accelerated rate relative to the global average over recent decades. However, the effects of climate change on Andean lakes, which are vital to sustaining regional biodiversity and serve as an important water resource to local populations, remain largely unknown. Here, we show that recent climate changes have forced alpine lakes of the equatorial Andes towards new ecological and physical states, in close synchrony to the rapid shrinkage of glaciers regionally. Using dated sediment cores from three lakes in the southern Sierra of Ecuador, we record abrupt increases in the planktonic thalassiosiroid diatom Discostella stelligera from trace abundances to dominance within the phytoplankton. This unprecedented shift occurs against the backdrop of rising temperatures, changing atmospheric pressure fields, and declining wind speeds. Ecological restructuring in these lakes is linked to warming and/or enhanced water column stratification. In contrast to seasonally ice-covered Arctic and temperate alpine counterparts, aquatic production has not increased universally with warming, and has even declined in some lakes, possibly because enhanced thermal stability impedes the re-circulation of hypolimnetic nutrients to surface waters. Our results demonstrate that these lakes have already passed important ecological thresholds, with potentially far-reaching consequences for Andean water resources. |
format |
Text |
author |
Michelutti, Neal Wolfe, Alexander P. Cooke, Colin A. Hobbs, William O. Vuille, Mathias Smol, John P. |
author_facet |
Michelutti, Neal Wolfe, Alexander P. Cooke, Colin A. Hobbs, William O. Vuille, Mathias Smol, John P. |
author_sort |
Michelutti, Neal |
title |
Climate Change Forces New Ecological States in Tropical Andean Lakes |
title_short |
Climate Change Forces New Ecological States in Tropical Andean Lakes |
title_full |
Climate Change Forces New Ecological States in Tropical Andean Lakes |
title_fullStr |
Climate Change Forces New Ecological States in Tropical Andean Lakes |
title_full_unstemmed |
Climate Change Forces New Ecological States in Tropical Andean Lakes |
title_sort |
climate change forces new ecological states in tropical andean lakes |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4315470 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25647018 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115338 |
geographic |
Arctic |
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Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Climate change Phytoplankton |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change Phytoplankton |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25647018 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115338 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 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 |
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CC-BY |
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115338 |
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PLOS ONE |
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10 |
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