LTER: Comparative Study of a Suite of Lakes in Wisconsin

世界各地的淡水湖泊提供了重要的生态和人类利益，从水生栖息地到体育和商业渔业，再到安全可靠的饮用水。北温带湖泊（NTL）长期生态研究计划的目标是了解湖泊如何以及为什么随着时间的推移而变化，并确定这些变化对这些和其他基本服务的后果。研究重点是两组湖泊及其周围的景观。一组位于北方威斯康星州的乡村，森林和旅游为主的北方高地湖区，另一组位于威斯康星州首府麦迪逊周围的农业和城市景观。对这些对比环境的研究提供了对景观和区域中的单个湖泊和湖泊群如何受到气候条件变化、大风暴事件、入侵物种、有害藻华、城市化和环境政策变化等现象影响的见解。该项目采用了一些不同的方法来收集长期数据并分析这些长期观测结果。研究结果提高了对湖区生态变化的理解，这对任何关心特定地区未来、淡水资源及其居民福利的人都很重要。这些成果还被纳入多种教育和培训活动。NTL计划致力于支持科学的多样性，并致力于将科学发现和专业知识传达给广大受众，为个人，非政府组织，学术界以及地方，州和联邦机构提供信息。该项目将解决生物物理环境、气候、土地利用和覆盖如何相互作用以塑造过去、现在和未来的湖泊动态和组织的首要问题。 将在主题领域组织活动，包括（1）记录、描述和解释湖泊和湖区的长期变化;（2）探索过去和未来潜在的气候条件如何影响湖泊的物理、化学和生物过程;（3）了解湖泊内部和湖泊之间长期变化的空间变化方式和原因;（4）研究湖泊和湖区如何应对突发变化、极端事件或相互作用的驱动因素。这项工作通知，并告知景观生态学，干扰生态学和多重因果关系的概念和模型。问题将在一系列的规模和主题，包括在热制度和鱼类栖息地的湖泊内的变化，以应对气候，湖泊之间的水生入侵物种的丰度影响关系;流域有机碳和磷的动态，区域水的清晰度趋势，以及许多其他解决。研究方法包括生成和分析长期观察，实验，多个湖泊的比较研究，以及各种建模和统计工具。该研究小组由一个跨学科的团队组成，具有地球化学，气候学，古湖沼学，人口学，生态学（景观，生态系统，社区，人口和古生态学），经济学，教育和推广，流体力学，水文学，信息管理和微生物学的专业知识。多尺度，多方面的NTL研究计划旨在检测长期变化的模式，评估和推进概念，以了解这些变化的原因和后果，并建立前瞻性模型和假设，将使用未来的长期观察进行测试。

Freshwater lakes around the world provide essential ecological and human benefits that range from aquatic habitat to sport and commercial fisheries to safe and reliable drinking water. The goal of the North Temperate Lakes (NTL) Long-Term Ecological Research Program is to understand how and why lakes change over time and to determine the consequences of these changes for these and other basic services. The research focuses on two sets of lakes and their surrounding landscapes. One set lies in the rural, forested, and tourist-dominated Northern Highland Lake District in northern Wisconsin and the other lies in the agricultural and urban landscape around Madison, Wisconsin's capitol. Studies of these contrasting settings provide insights into how individual lakes and groups of lakes across landscapes and regions are affected by phenomena such as shifting climate conditions, large storm events, invasive species, harmful algal blooms, urbanization, and changes in environmental policies. The project implements a number of different approaches to collect data over long time periods and to analyze these long-term observations. Results improve understanding of ecological change in lake districts that is important to anyone concerned with the future of a particular region, its freshwater resources, and the welfare of its residents. Results are also integrated into multiple educational and training activities. The NTL program is committed to supporting diversity in science, and to outreach efforts that communicate scientific findings and expertise to broad audiences, informing individuals, non-governmental organizations, academics, and local, state and federal agencies. The project will address the overarching question of how biophysical setting, climate, and land use and cover interact to shape lake dynamics and organization in the past, present and future. Activities will be organized in thematic areas that involve (1) documenting, describing, and interpreting long term change in lakes and lake districts; (2) exploring how past and potential future climate conditions influence lake physical, chemical, and biological processes; (3) understanding how and why long-term changes vary spatially within and among lakes; and (4) examining how lakes and lake districts respond to sudden changes, extreme events, or interacting drivers. The work informs and is informed by concepts and models from landscape ecology, disturbance ecology, and multiple causation. Questions will be addressed across a range of scales and topics, including within-lake changes in thermal regime and fish habitat in response to climate, abundance-impact relationships for aquatic invasive species among lakes; watershed organic carbon and phosphorus dynamics, regional water clarity trends, and many others. Research approaches include generating and analyzing long-term observations, experiments, comparative studies of multiple lakes, and diverse modeling and statistical tools. The research group comprises an interdisciplinary team with expertise in biogeochemistry, climatology, paleolimnology, demography, ecology (landscape, ecosystem, community, population, and paleo- ecology), economics, education and outreach, hydrodynamics, hydrology, information management, and microbiology. The multi-scale, multi-faceted NTL research program is designed to detect patterns of long-term change, evaluate and advance concepts to understand causes and consequences of these changes, and build forward-looking models and hypotheses that will be tested using future long-term observations.