The ecology and paleoecology of shallow lakes

浅湖是温带景观和生物生产力热点的普遍特征。尽管浅湖无处不在，但湖沼学一直倾向于研究深湖。欧洲人已经认识到这种差异，在过去的二十年里，他们提供了关于欧洲浅湖生态学和古生态学的新数据。然而，鉴于淡水面临的压力越来越大，获取北美浅湖的数据以确定欧洲模式在多大程度上适用于该大陆是很重要的。为了满足这一需求，我发起了一项研究计划，利用空间和时间方法来解决浅湖生态变化的模式。本研究的关键是开发新的工具，从湖泊沉积物记录中推断过去的生态变化，并应用这些工具量化过去~1000年来温带北美东北部浅湖生态动态的轨迹、时间和幅度。本研究将收集和分析一系列古湖泊学指标（即藻类色素、硅藻、枝纲、摇尾纲、花粉和大型化石）的数据，以便在尽可能广泛的背景下推断生态变化。然后将这些结果与其他地区发表的记录进行比较，以确定生态动态是否与全球层面上的土地利用和气候变化的强度相匹配，或者是否更多地由区域界定。这些知识对于模拟浅湖对未来环境变化轨迹的反应以及为我们最宝贵的自然资源之一-淡水制定有效的环境管理计划至关重要。

Shallow lakes are a pervasive feature in temperate landscapes and hotspots of biological productivity. Despite the ubiquity of shallow lakes, there has been a bias in limnology to study deep lakes. Europeans have recognized this disparity and over the past two decades, they have contributed new data about the ecology and paleoecology of shallow lakes in Europe. However, given the increasing pressures on fresh waters, it is important to obtain data for shallow lakes in North America to determine the extent to which European models will be applicable to this continent. To address this need, I have initiated a research program that uses both spatial and temporal approaches to resolve patterns of ecological change in shallow lakes. The crux of the present proposal is to develop new tools for inferring past ecological changes from lake sediment records and apply these tools to quantify the trajectories, timing and magnitude of ecological dynamics in temperate, northeastern North American shallow lakes over the past ~1000 years. This research will collect and analyze data for a spectrum of paleolimnological indicators (i.e., algal pigments, diatoms, cladocera, chironomids, pollen and macrofossils) to enable ecological changes to be inferred in the broadest context possible. The results will then be compared with published records from other regions to determine if the ecological dynamics scale with the intensity of land-use and climate variability at a global level or whether responses are more regionally defined. This knowledge is critical for modeling the response of shallow lakes to future trajectories of environmental change and for developing effective environmental stewardship plans for one of our most precious natural resources - fresh water.