Taking a macroscale perspective to improve understanding of shallow lake total phosphorus and chlorophyll a

Kendra Spence Cheruvelil; Katherine Webster; Katelyn King; Autumn C. Poisson; Tyler Wagner

doi:10.1007/s10750-022-04811-1

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Taking a macroscale perspective to improve understanding of shallow lake total phosphorus and chlorophyll a

Kendra Spence Cheruvelil·Katherine Webster·Katelyn King·Autumn C. Poisson·Tyler Wagner

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Abstract

We conducted a macroscale study of 2210 shallow lakes (mean depth ≤ 3 m or a maximum depth ≤ 5 m) in the Upper Midwestern and Northeastern USA. We asked the following: What are the patterns and drivers of shallow lake total phosphorus (TP), chlorophyll a (CHLa), and TP–CHLa relationships at the macroscale, how do these differ from those for 4360 non-shallow lakes, and do results differ by hydrologic connectivity class? Spatial patterns and Bayesian hierarchical models indicated that shallow lakes had higher TP and CHLa than non-shallow lakes, connected shallow lakes were more productive than unconnected shallow lakes, and there was regional variation in these patterns. Important predictors of TP and CHLa included lake-specific watershed:lake area ratio, forested land use/cover, and baseflow; unconnected lakes were more difficult to predict than connected lakes; and region-specific predictors were mostly unimportant. Shallow lake TP–CHLa relationships were less steep than for non-shallow lakes and these relationships varied regionally. Our results, combined with the facts that only 23% of lakes in the study extent have depth data and that shallow and unconnected lakes are undersampled, have important implications for estimates of lake contributions to global cycles that are based mainly on large (and deeper) lakes.

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Hydrobiologia Article

Source-reported bounding extent: 35.995683° to 49.383079° latitude; -97.238387° to -66.950569° longitude. This indicates report coverage, not an exact sampling location. View area on OpenStreetMap.

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Kendra Spence Cheruvelil, Katherine Webster, Katelyn King, Autumn C. Poisson, Tyler Wagner. 2022-02-25. Taking a macroscale perspective to improve understanding of shallow lake total phosphorus and chlorophyll a. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-022-04811-1

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