Effects of multiple stressors on littoral habitat and lake ecosystems

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Lakes and rivers provide us many ecological services, from drinking water to recreation opportunities. They are also considered among the most human-impacted ecosystems on the planet. Long-term (multi-decadal or longer) environmental data, however, are rarely available as a benchmark to evaluate human-induced ecosystem changes and therefore paleoecological data are needed to assess human disturbance to aquatic ecosystems. The near-shore littoral zone of lakes is often the earliest and most severely impacted region of a lake. Because of this, it is important that we integrate the response of the ecologically influential and diverse near-shore littoral environment into our understanding of aquatic ecosystem change. In temperate lakes, one of the defining features of the near-shore littoral zone are submerged plant beds (macrophytes). Macrophyte beds are among the most biodiverse areas in lakes, are sinks for excessive nutrients, serve as important habitat for numerous animals including top predators, and enhance ecosystem resilience. Much of our understanding of how humans alter macrophyte beds comes from studies on shallow (max depth