Near-surface wind speeds have changed over recent decades, raising questions about the extent to which these changes are altering the vertical thermal structure of lakes and affecting lake food webs. Neo- and paleolimnological techniques were used to assess wind-driven changes in lake thermal habitat and resulting effects on primary producers in two lakes in Isle Royale National Park, an island archipelago located in Lake Superior, where wind speed has increased in recent decades. Responses in Siskiwit Lake, a large (16 km2 surface area), deep (Zmax = 49 m), oligotrophic lake, were compared to those of Lake Desor, a moderately large (4.3 km2) but shallower (Zmax = 13 m), mesotrophic lake. High-frequency sensor data suggested that changes in wind speed affected epilimnion thickness in both lakes synchronously (ρ = 0.7, p < 0.001). Diatom-inferred mixing depths suggested a coherent shift in both lakes to deeper mixing (an increase of 3 and 6 m) since 1920 (ρ = 0.8), which was correlated with an increase in regional wind speed during the 20th century at the decadal-scale in Lake Desor and Siskiwit Lake (ρ = 0.6 and 0.4, respectively). In Lake Desor, algal biomass declined as mixing deepened from 1920 to 1980, and then cyanobacteria and cryptophyte pigments increased from 1980 to present, a period of inferred stable and deep mixing. Algal pigment concentrations in Siskiwit Lake were unchanged as mixing depth deepened. Although changes in wind speed altered lake physical structure similarly, the ecological consequences of these changes differed between lakes and were most likely influenced by lake-specific variability in nutrient and light availability.

Strock, Kristin E., Jasmine E. Saros, Suzanne McGowan, Mark B. Edlund, and Daniel R. Engstrom. Response of Boreal Lakes to Changing Wind Strength: Coherent Physical Changes Across Two Large Lakes but Varying Effects on Primary Producers Over the 20th Century. Limnology and Oceanography 64, no. 5 (2019): 2237-2251. https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lno.11181

This is an Open Access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits use, distribution and reproduction inany medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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 ASLO's (Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography) Website. https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lno.11181