Implications of climate warming for Boreal Shield lakes: a review and synthesis

Abstract

Climate change is a reality. A warming climate will have large effects on lakes of the Boreal Shield. Our ability to forecast these effects, however, is hampered by a very incomplete understanding of the actual interactions between weather and many aspects of lake ecosystems. Climate change will affect lakes in very complex ways. Changing weather conditions will have direct effects on thermal habitats; however, there will also be very important indirect effects on lake ecosystems through influences on watershed processes that affect the thermal and chemical characteristics of lakes. Altered habitat conditions will affect the resident biota in both positive and negative ways and may favour range expansions of some native and non-native species. Our understanding of the altered biological interactions that will structure lake communities in a warmer climate is still limited, making the prediction of biological outcomes very difficult. Modelling efforts, experiments and empirical analyses of relationships between important attributes of lakes, lake communities, and weather conditions in the past are beginning to further our ability to predict likely future effects. Much more work is needed in all these research areas to further our understanding of the probable effects of climate change on Boreal Shield lakes. Because of the potential interactions of climate with other large-scale environmental stressors such as UV-B irradiance, exotic species invasions, base cation depletion, and acidification, future studies need to consider multiple stressor effects.