Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Chapter 4. Bacterial and archaeal DNA from lake sediments
Published: 2023-09-22
Subjects: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
General microbial patterns of biogeography can be established based on sedimentary DNA (sedDNA) retrieved from diverse inland aquatic ecosystems, provided that certain variable environmental factors are taken into consideration in order to trace the admixture of prokaryotic sedDNA preserved in lacustrine sediments from source to sink. These include several watershed characteristics, such as [...]
National-scale, remotely sensed lake trophic state, 1984-2020
Published: 2023-05-10
Subjects: Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Lake trophic state is a key ecosystem property that integrates a lake’s physical, chemical, and biological processes. Despite the importance of trophic state as a gauge of lake water quality, standardized and machine-readable observations are uncommon. Remote sensing presents an opportunity to detect and analyze lake trophic state with reproducible, robust methods across time and space. We used [...]
The unknown fate of macroplastic in mountain rivers
Published: 2022-11-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, Sustainability, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Water Resource Management
Mountain rivers are typically seen as relatively pristine ecosystems, supporting numerous goods (e.g., water resources) for human populations living not only in the mountain regions but also downstream from them. Recent evidence suggests, however, that mountain river valleys in populated areas can be substantially polluted by macroplastic (plastic item > 5 mm). It is, however, unknown how [...]
Trait-based modeling revealed higher microbial diversity leads to greater ecological resilience in response to an ecosystem disturbance
Published: 2022-10-15
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Microbiology, Oceanography, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
To quantitatively understand the ecological resilience of an ecosystem with specialized habitats, we focused on deep-sea microbial communities and simulated the response of diverse microbes in specialized habitats to a pulse ecosystem disturbance - the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Two microbial communities with equivalent metabolic libraries were acclimated to the presence [...]
Influence of macrophytes on stratification and dissolved oxygen dynamics in ponds
Published: 2022-09-24
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Hydrology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1. Small waterbodies are sensitive to stressors such as nutrient enrichment and heatwaves. However, when present, macrophytes may mediate these compounding stressors through their influence on water column thermal structure. Canopy-forming macrophyte beds can induce thermal stratification, which may limit the depth and degree of water column warming during heatwaves. 2. We leveraged an ecosystem [...]
Microcystin as a Biogeochemical Cycle: pools, fluxes, and fates of the cyanotoxin in aquatic ecosystems
Published: 2022-06-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Microcystin poses a serious threat to aquatic ecosystems and human health. There is a pressing need to understand the production, movement, and storage of microcystin in lakes. We constructed a conceptual biogeochemical model for microcystin through a comprehensive literature synthesis, identifying four major pools and nine major fluxes in lakes that also connect to the terrestrial environment. [...]
Experimental evaluation of the effects of bigmouth buffalo (Ictiobus cyprinellus) density on shallow lake ecosystems
Published: 2022-05-20
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Bigmouth buffalo (Ictiobus cyprinellus) is a large-bodied planktivore inhabiting shallow waterways in North America and subjected to unregulated harvest throughout much of their native range. Despite high harvest pressure on some populations, we know little about the ecosystem-level effects of lowering bigmouth buffalo densities. To evaluate the effect of bigmouth buffalo density on lower trophic [...]
GEDI Launches a New Era of Biomass Inference from Space
Published: 2022-04-20
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Earth Sciences, Other Earth Sciences, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Accurate estimation of aboveground forest biomass stocks is required to assess the impacts of land use changes such as deforestation and subsequent regrowth on concentrations of atmospheric CO2. The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) is a lidar mission launched by NASA to the International Space Station in 2018. GEDI was specifically designed to retrieve vegetation structure within a [...]
Fire-vegetation interactions in Arctic tundra and their spatial variability
Published: 2022-03-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Plant Sciences, Remote Sensing, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Circumpolar tundra has experienced a greater increase in temperatures compared to any other biome, with a magnitude of the increase nearly three times the global average. Widespread shrubification associated with pronounced observed warming is gradually transforming the tundra ecosystem structure and function. This study confirms that a shrub-dominated fire-biomass positive feedback loop is [...]
Sediment phosphorus composition controls hot spots and hot moments of internal loading in a temperate reservoir
Published: 2022-02-05
Subjects: Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Phosphorus (P) flux across the sediment-water interface in lakes and reservoirs responds to external perturbations within the context of sediment characteristics. Lentic ecosystems experience profound spatiotemporal heterogeneity in the mechanisms that control sediment P fluxes, likely producing hot spots and hot moments of internal loading. However, spatiotemporal variation in P fluxes remains [...]
High Inter- and Intra-lake Variation in Sediment Phosphorus Pools in Shallow Lakes
Published: 2022-02-05
Subjects: Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Phosphorus (P) release from lakebed sediments may fuel phytoplankton blooms, especially in shallow waterbodies. A primary mechanism that controls internal P loading is the size and chemical composition of the sediment P pool. However, variation in sediment P within and among shallow lakes remains poorly quantified. We measured the degree of spatial heterogeneity in the size and composition of [...]
Fire and water: contaminants and clearance following uncontrolled fires
Published: 2021-11-08
Subjects: Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
There is a growing body of evidence surrounding the implications of uncontrolled bushfires and wildfires on water. This topic has importance from an ecological perspective, and significance for human health as it has consequences for drinking water quality and supply. Against the backdrop of climate change, it is especially important to holistically understand the impact of fire on water. This [...]
Modeling the Responses of Dissolved Oxygen and Nitrate Concentrations due to Land Use and Land Cover Change Scenarios in a Large Subtropical Reservoir
Published: 2021-09-15
Subjects: Biochemistry, Environmental Engineering, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Itupararanga reservoir is a large reservoir built in the Southeast of Brazil to support multiple uses, mainly hydropower generation and drinking water supply for almost 1 million people. We applied a process-based biogeochemical model and a distributed basin load model to assess the responses of dissolved oxygen and nitrate concentrations in the Itupararanga reservoir based on three land use and [...]
Drivers of phytoplankton responses to summer storms in a stratified lake: a modelling study
Published: 2021-08-03
Subjects: Hydrology, Other Environmental Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Extreme wind events affect lake phytoplankton amongst others by deepening the mixed layer and increasing internal nutrient loading. Both increases and decreases of phytoplankton biomass after storms have been observed, but the precise mechanisms driving these responses remain poorly understood or quantified. In this study, we coupled a one-dimensional physical model to a biogeochemical model to [...]
Ten Simple Rules for Researchers Who Want to Develop Web Apps
Published: 2021-07-18
Subjects: Agricultural Science, Agriculture, Applied Statistics, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Environmental Monitoring, Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces, Natural Resources and Conservation, Software Engineering, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Water Resource Management
Growing interest in data-driven, decision-support tools across the life sciences and physical sciences has motivated development of web applications, also known as web apps. Web apps can help disseminate research findings and present research outputs in ways that are more accessible and meaningful to the general public--from individuals, to governments, to companies. Specifically, web apps enable [...]