Ice-cover is the principal driver of ecological change in High Arctic lakes and ponds
Recent climate change has been especially pronounced in the High Arctic, however, the responses of aquatic biota, such as diatoms, can be modified by site-specific environmental characteristics. To assess if climate-mediated ice cover changes affect the diatom response to climate, we used paleolimno...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:5351862 2023-05-15T14:53:06+02:00 Ice-cover is the principal driver of ecological change in High Arctic lakes and ponds Griffiths, Katherine Michelutti, Neal Sugar, Madeline Douglas, Marianne S. V. Smol, John P. 2017-03-15 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5351862/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28296897 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172989 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5351862/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28296897 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172989 © 2017 Griffiths et al 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 2017 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172989 2017-04-09T00:02:05Z Recent climate change has been especially pronounced in the High Arctic, however, the responses of aquatic biota, such as diatoms, can be modified by site-specific environmental characteristics. To assess if climate-mediated ice cover changes affect the diatom response to climate, we used paleolimnological techniques to examine shifts in diatom assemblages from ten High Arctic lakes and ponds from Ellesmere Island and nearby Pim Island (Nunavut, Canada). The sites were divided a priori into four groups (“warm”, “cool”, “cold”, and “oasis”) based on local elevation and microclimatic differences that result in differing lengths of the ice-free season, as well as about three decades of personal observations. We characterized the species changes as a shift from Condition 1 (i.e. a generally low diversity, predominantly epipelic and epilithic diatom assemblage) to Condition 2 (i.e. a typically more diverse and ecologically complex assemblage with an increasing proportion of epiphytic species). This shift from Condition 1 to Condition 2 was a consistent pattern recorded across the sites that experienced a change in ice cover with warming. The “warm” sites are amongst the first to lose their ice covers in summer and recorded the earliest and highest magnitude changes. The “cool” sites also exhibited a shift from Condition 1 to Condition 2, but, as predicted, the timing of the response lagged the “warm” sites. Meanwhile some of the “cold” sites, which until recently still retained an ice raft in summer, only exhibited this shift in the upper-most sediments. The warmer “oasis” ponds likely supported aquatic vegetation throughout their records. Consequently, the diatoms of the “oasis” sites were characterized as high-diversity, Condition 2 assemblages throughout the record. Our results support the hypothesis that the length of the ice-free season is the principal driver of diatom assemblage responses to climate in the High Arctic, largely driven by the establishment of new aquatic habitats, resulting in increased ... Text Arctic Climate change Ellesmere Island Nunavut PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Canada Ellesmere Island Nunavut Pim Island ENVELOPE(-74.430,-74.430,78.725,78.725) PLOS ONE 12 3 e0172989 |
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English |
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Research Article |
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Research Article Griffiths, Katherine Michelutti, Neal Sugar, Madeline Douglas, Marianne S. V. Smol, John P. Ice-cover is the principal driver of ecological change in High Arctic lakes and ponds |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
Recent climate change has been especially pronounced in the High Arctic, however, the responses of aquatic biota, such as diatoms, can be modified by site-specific environmental characteristics. To assess if climate-mediated ice cover changes affect the diatom response to climate, we used paleolimnological techniques to examine shifts in diatom assemblages from ten High Arctic lakes and ponds from Ellesmere Island and nearby Pim Island (Nunavut, Canada). The sites were divided a priori into four groups (“warm”, “cool”, “cold”, and “oasis”) based on local elevation and microclimatic differences that result in differing lengths of the ice-free season, as well as about three decades of personal observations. We characterized the species changes as a shift from Condition 1 (i.e. a generally low diversity, predominantly epipelic and epilithic diatom assemblage) to Condition 2 (i.e. a typically more diverse and ecologically complex assemblage with an increasing proportion of epiphytic species). This shift from Condition 1 to Condition 2 was a consistent pattern recorded across the sites that experienced a change in ice cover with warming. The “warm” sites are amongst the first to lose their ice covers in summer and recorded the earliest and highest magnitude changes. The “cool” sites also exhibited a shift from Condition 1 to Condition 2, but, as predicted, the timing of the response lagged the “warm” sites. Meanwhile some of the “cold” sites, which until recently still retained an ice raft in summer, only exhibited this shift in the upper-most sediments. The warmer “oasis” ponds likely supported aquatic vegetation throughout their records. Consequently, the diatoms of the “oasis” sites were characterized as high-diversity, Condition 2 assemblages throughout the record. Our results support the hypothesis that the length of the ice-free season is the principal driver of diatom assemblage responses to climate in the High Arctic, largely driven by the establishment of new aquatic habitats, resulting in increased ... |
format |
Text |
author |
Griffiths, Katherine Michelutti, Neal Sugar, Madeline Douglas, Marianne S. V. Smol, John P. |
author_facet |
Griffiths, Katherine Michelutti, Neal Sugar, Madeline Douglas, Marianne S. V. Smol, John P. |
author_sort |
Griffiths, Katherine |
title |
Ice-cover is the principal driver of ecological change in High Arctic lakes and ponds |
title_short |
Ice-cover is the principal driver of ecological change in High Arctic lakes and ponds |
title_full |
Ice-cover is the principal driver of ecological change in High Arctic lakes and ponds |
title_fullStr |
Ice-cover is the principal driver of ecological change in High Arctic lakes and ponds |
title_full_unstemmed |
Ice-cover is the principal driver of ecological change in High Arctic lakes and ponds |
title_sort |
ice-cover is the principal driver of ecological change in high arctic lakes and ponds |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5351862/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28296897 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172989 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-74.430,-74.430,78.725,78.725) |
geographic |
Arctic Canada Ellesmere Island Nunavut Pim Island |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Canada Ellesmere Island Nunavut Pim Island |
genre |
Arctic Climate change Ellesmere Island Nunavut |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change Ellesmere Island Nunavut |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5351862/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28296897 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172989 |
op_rights |
© 2017 Griffiths et al 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.0172989 |
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PLOS ONE |
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12 |
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3 |
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e0172989 |
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