Evidence suggests that boreal-lake ecosystems are changing rapidly, but with variable ecological responses, due to climate warming. Paleolimnological analysis of 27 undeveloped northern forested lakes showed significant and potentially climate-mediated shifts in diatom communities and increased carbon and biogenic silica burial. We hypothesize the sensitivity of northern forested lakes to climate change will vary along two physical gradients: one reflecting direct, in-lake climate effects (propensity to thermally stratify), the other reflecting indirect watershed effects (watershed to lake-surface area ratio). We focus on the historical response of algal communities to test our two-dimensional sensitivity framework. Historical algal response was summarized by measures of diatom community turnover, changes in species and diagnostic species groups, and measures of siliceous algal and overall primary production (biogenic silica, carbon burial). Measures of algal production increased across all lake types, with carbon burial proportionately higher in polymictic lakes. Greater diatom community change occurred in deep, stratified lakes with smaller watersheds, whereas diatom species groups showed variable responses along our two-dimensional sensitivity framework. Physical characteristics of lakes and watersheds could serve as predictors of sensitivity to climate change based on paleo-indicators that are mechanistically linked to direct and indirect limnological effects of climate change.

Edlund, Mark B., Joy M. Ramstack Hobbs, Adam J. Heathcote, Daniel R. Engstrom, Jasmine E. Saros, Kristin E. Strock, William O. Hobbs, Norman A. Andresen, and David D. VanderMeulen. Physical Characteristics of Northern Forested Lakes Predict Sensitivity to Climate Change. Hydrobiologia 849 (2022): 2705–2729. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10750-022-04887-9#Sec6

Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Kristin Strock is a professor of Environmental Studies at Dickinson College.

This published version is made available on Dickinson Scholar with the permission of the publisher. For more information on the published version, visit Springer's Website. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10750-022-04887-9

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