Abstract

Concurrent regional and global environmental changes are affecting freshwater ecosystems. Decadal-scale data on lake ecosystems that can describe processes affected by these changes are important as multiple stressors often interact to alter the trajectory of key ecological phenomena in complex ways. Due to the practical challenges associated with long-term data collections, the majority of existing long-term data sets focus on only a small number of lakes or few response variables. Here we present physical, chemical, and biological data from 28 lakes in the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York State. These data span the period from 1994–2012 and harmonize multiple open and as-yet unpublished data sources. The dataset creation is reproducible and transparent; R code and all original files used to create the dataset are provided in an appendix. This dataset will be useful for examining ecological change in lakes undergoing multiple stressors.

Highlights

  • Background & SummaryFreshwater lakes are changing in complex ways, with multiple long-term environmental stressors interacting to form novel conditions in aquatic ecosystems

  • When combined with inherently low acid neutralizing capacity (ANC)[24,25], high rates of acidic deposition resulted in severe acidification of surface waters in this region[33,34]

  • There is a single mounded seepage lake with historically low dissolved organic carbon (DOC) (MSL) and one lake drains a watershed with deposits of carbonate (C), which eliminates sensitivity to acidification due to high ANC

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Summary

Background & Summary

Freshwater lakes are changing in complex ways, with multiple long-term environmental stressors interacting to form novel conditions in aquatic ecosystems. Due to the proximity to industrial centers in the mid-western US and prevailing winds[26], the region received elevated atmospheric sulfur and nitrogen deposition, which has decreased in recent years[27] This unique combination of geology and geography of the Adirondacks resulted in widespread and severe acidification of surface waters, which are undergoing recovery. The dataset presented here is a long-term, comprehensive record of physical, chemical, and biological measurements of a diverse set of lakes undergoing the effects of a changing climate while recovering from acidification It is a harmonization of multiple open and unpublished data sources, including the Adirondack Effects Assessment Program (AEAP) Aquatic Biota Survey (www.rpi.edu/dept/DFWI/ research/aeap/aeap_research.html), the Adirondack Long Term Monitoring Program It is a harmonization of multiple open and unpublished data sources, including the Adirondack Effects Assessment Program (AEAP) Aquatic Biota Survey (www.rpi.edu/dept/DFWI/ research/aeap/aeap_research.html), the Adirondack Long Term Monitoring Program (ALTM; www. adirondacklakessurvey.org), and the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS; http:// ldas.gsfc.nasa.gov/nldas), and represents a more diverse, long-term data record of Adirondack lakes than has been previously available

Methods
Findings
Analytical Method
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