Consistent stoichiometric long-term relationships between nutrients and chlorophyll-a across shallow lakes.
Nat Commun
; 15(1): 809, 2024 Jan 27.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38280872
ABSTRACT
Aquatic ecosystems are threatened by eutrophication from nutrient pollution. In lakes, eutrophication causes a plethora of deleterious effects, such as harmful algal blooms, fish kills and increased methane emissions. However, lake-specific responses to nutrient changes are highly variable, complicating eutrophication management. These lake-specific responses could result from short-term stochastic drivers overshadowing lake-independent, long-term relationships between phytoplankton and nutrients. Here, we show that strong stoichiometric long-term relationships exist between nutrients and chlorophyll a (Chla) for 5-year simple moving averages (SMA, median R² = 0.87) along a gradient of total nitrogen to total phosphorus (TNTP) ratios. These stoichiometric relationships are consistent across 159 shallow lakes (defined as average depth < 6 m) from a cross-continental, open-access database. We calculate 5-year SMA residuals to assess short-term variability and find substantial short-term Chla variation which is weakly related to nutrient concentrations (median R² = 0.12). With shallow lakes representing 89% of the world's lakes, the identified stoichiometric long-term relationships can globally improve quantitative nutrient management in both lakes and their catchments through a nutrient-ratio-based strategy.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Lagos
/
Ecossistema
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
País/Região como assunto:
Asia
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2024
Tipo de documento:
Article