Assessment of freshwater diatoms as quantitative indicators of past climatic change in the Yukon and Northwest Territories, Canada

Abstract

We identified, enumerated, and interpreted the diatom assemblages preserved in the surface sediments of 59 lakes located between Whitehorse in the Yukon and Tuktoyaktuk in the Northwest Territories (Canada). The lakes are distributed along a latitudinal gradient that includes several ecoclimatic zones. It also spans large gradients in limnological variables. Thus, the study lakes are ideal for environmental calibration of modern diatom assemblages. Canonical correspondence analysis, with forward selection and Monte Carlo permutation tests, showed that maximum lake depth and summer surface-water temperature were the two environmental variables that accounted for most of the variance in the diatom data. The concentrations of sodium and calcium were also important explanatory variables. Using weighted-averaging regression and calibration techniques, we developed a predictive statistical model to infer lake surface-water temperature, and we evaluated the feasibility of using diatoms as paleoclimate proxies. This model may be used to derive paleotemperature inferences from fossil diatom assemblages at appropriate sites in the western Canadian Arctic.