Chapters - Past freshwater changes

17 important questions on Chapters - Past freshwater changes

Why are extinctions rates so high in freshwater systems?

The provision of water for human consumption and use constitutes a huge set of ecosystem services provided by rivers and lakes, one that is largely oversubscribed.

By what is the base of freshwater food chains often occupied?

By microorganisms, in contrast to terrestrial systems, in which primary production is most often centered in macroplants.

How do species ranges shift in fresh water?

Species ranges may migrate linearly in streams and rivers, or vertically in lakes, but large-scale, continuous range shifts in many directions are not possible in these systems.
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What might lakes provide insight into?

  1. droughts
  2. regional climatic changes
  3. teleconnections
  4. rapid climate change
  5. drivers of climate cycles


Isotopic and lake level indices are important in most of these investigations, whereas unique features such as pronounced stratigraphy (varves) are crucial in a few.

Where are global changes in mean temperature often inferred from?

Ice cores from Greenland or the Antarctic.

Where are regional temperature and especially precipitation changes discernable from?

From lake records and follow more complex patterns.

What will the results of intensification of stomr events be?

  • increases in annual streamflow
  • a compression of the annual flow volume into shorter bursts, resulting
    • intensified low-flow conditions
    • increased streambed cutting
    • resulting habitat alterations.

What are the characteristics of the epilimnion?

Well oxygenated and biologically productive, receiving inputs of sunlight to allow photosynthesis.

What are the characteristics of the hypolimnion?

Is virtually excluded from interactions with the atmosphere during stratification. Primary production is limited and heterotrophic processes dominate.

Oxygen may become depleted.

What effect might reduced temperature difference between the warm surface layer (epilimnion) and deep water (hypolimnion) have on the system?

It reduces the stability of stratification and mixing can occur.

How are smaller differences in temperature required to create stratification in warm tropical waters versus lakes at higher latitude?

Because the rate of decrease in water density increases at higher temperatures.

Where do summer and winter stratification result from?

Summer stratification results from warming of surface waters. Winter stratification is “upside down,” with warmer water at the bottom.

What are monomictic lakes?

Lakes that mix once a year. Include both lakes that stratify only in winter (cold monomictic) and those that stratify only in summer (warm monomictic).

What are dimictic lakes?

Lakes that stratify in both summer and winter mix in the spring and fall.

What are meromictic lakes?

Those that never completely mix and are most common in the tropics in lakes with deep waters, such as Lake Tanganyika.

What are oligomictic lakes?

Are found in lowlands and the tropics and mix only irregularly, usually due to storm events or other extreme weather.

What is the Press and Pulse hypothesis?

Press-driven change occurs when steady change in longterm mean climate drives a system into a new state. Pulse-driven change occurs when a short-term extreme event, or ‘pulse’, flips a system into a new state.

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