Abstract
It is well-known that recent climatic changes have strongly affected aquatic ecosystems. In this study, we examined the complex factors determining the development of phytoplankton communities during the vegetative growth season in eutrophic lakes located in a temperate zone in eastern Poland. Our analysis enabled us to divide the data into two different periods: years with a cold winter and low total precipitation, and those with a mild winter and high total precipitation. The analysis showed that the soluble and total nitrogen content, concentration of chlorophyll a, total phytoplankton biomass, and biomasses of Cyanobacteria and Cryptophyceae were significantly higher in the vegetative growth season in the year after a mild winter, whereas the soluble and total phosphorus content and phytoplankton biodiversity were significantly lower in these years. Hence, climate warming indirectly led to the loss of biodiversity in the phytoplankton communities in the studied lakes of temperate zone. During this study, we also tested the effects of increases in air temperature and total precipitation on phytoplankton communities over short time periods (14 and 28 days). The results showed that the total phytoplankton biomass and the chlorophyll a concentration were only positively correlated with the air temperature. All of the features described in this study showed how sensitive lake ecosystems are to climatic fluctuations.
Highlights
Many extreme weather events have happened in recent years
TheBased physical andmean chemical, as well as the biological, parameters of the studied lakes;winter these periods that affected the physical and chemical, as well as the biological, parameters of the studied were years that followed a cold winter (CW), when the latest ice breakup date was observed to be lakes; these were years that followed a cold winter (CW), when the latest ice breakup date after mid-March, and those that followed a mild winter (MW), when the latest ice breakup date was was observed to be bebefore after mid-March, and those to that followed a mild winter when2012, the and latest2013, ice observed to this period
A CW was noted in the(MW), years 2010, breakup date was observed to be before this period
Summary
Many extreme weather events have happened in recent years. These are visible as regional climate disturbances, as well as changes on a global scale. Higher or lower air temperatures, longer or shorter winter periods, and droughts or intense precipitation events are all meteorological phenomena that are part of the ongoing climatic changes occurring in the world [1]. Such events and changes have happened naturally over the course of the history of the Earth, on a long timescale. The concept of the Anthropocene has emerged to describe the time in which we are living, and seems to be more and more appropriate [2,3]
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