Sub-fossil chironomids are significant indicators of turbidity in shallow lakes of northeastern USA |
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| Authors: | Marie-Hélène Greffard Émilie Saulnier-Talbot Irene Gregory-Eaves |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205 Docteur-Penfield, Montreal, QC, H3A 1B1, Canada |
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| Abstract: | Small, shallow, temperate lakes are predominant landscape features in North America, however, little is known about their
long-term ecosystem dynamics, and few data exist on the chironomid fauna they harbor. Using multivariate analyses, we defined
relationships between sub-fossil chironomid assemblage composition and environmental variables in 26 shallow lakes of northeastern
USA and quantified how differences in taxonomic resolution affect transfer function model performance. Using redundancy analysis,
we found that chironomid assemblages are best explained by turbidity, dissolved inorganic carbon and drainage basin/lake area
ratio. Turbidity explained the greatest proportion of variance found in the chironomid assemblage (10.4%), followed by total
nitrogen. Through ordination analyses and an analysis of similarity, we found that macrophyte density was also a significant
predictor of chironomid assemblages. We used partial least squares analysis to develop a robust model for quantitative reconstruction
of turbidity, with r
jack2 = 0.62. When using a more coarsely resolved taxonomic dataset, we found that model performance statistics were weaker, suggesting
the need for fine-resolution taxonomy. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of variables related to lake trophic
state in structuring chironomid assemblages in shallow, temperate lakes and provide tools for inferring past ecological changes
in these ecosystems. |
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