RAPID: Impact of Hurricanes Eta and Iota on Lake Yojoa

全球变化正在迅速改变许多热带生态系统，但人们对这些变化如何影响这些生态系统的特征及其提供的服务知之甚少。造成这种变化的一个重要因素是飓风频率和强度的增加。2020年11月，两个飓风（埃塔和伊奥塔）从加勒比海盆地迅速连续穿越马达加斯加大陆。每一场飓风都在降级为热带风暴的过程中产生大量降雨，并淹没了洪都拉斯中北部的苏拉山谷。Yojoa湖位于洪都拉斯中北部，是洪都拉斯唯一的天然湖泊，4000年来一直是人类的家园，因此，对许多洪都拉斯人来说具有重要的意义。应对全球淡水可持续性的挑战需要深入了解地球仪各地的生态系统。这一“快速行动计划”将评估最近的飓风造成的日益频繁的大规模降雨事件如何通过改变热带湖泊及其流域的物理动力学和水化学来影响热带水生生态系统，这一“快速行动计划”是一个独特的机会，可以弥合目前对淡水生态系统的理解中三个不足交叉点上的知识差距。首先，热带湖泊的经验分层和混合研究不足相比，温带同行。第二，湖泊生态系统很少在它们所处的流域范围内加以考虑。第三，为了充分了解全球变化对水生生态系统的影响，需要能够区分年内和年际变化的时间序列数据。该项目涉及两次大飓风对中美洲一个单胞热带湖（Yojoa湖）及其流域的影响。在这样做的过程中，它提供了一个机会，以a）促进我们的热带单胞湖泊的生态地球化学的理解，B）确定流域衍生的外来养分输送和内部湖泊生态地球化学动力学之间的关键联系和c）确定飓风对热带流域和湖泊的影响。通过快速部署湖泊和流域采样设计，并将当代动态与飓风前进行的分析进行比较，该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并被认为值得通过利用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估来支持的搜索.

Global change is rapidly altering many tropical ecosystems with little understanding of how those changes impact the characteristics of those ecosystems and the services they provide. An important force in this change is the increase in hurricane frequency and intensity. In November of 2020, two hurricanes (Eta and Iota) moved from the Caribbean basin to across the Honduran mainland in quick succession. Each hurricane generated massive rainfall as it downgraded to a tropical storm and flooded the Sula Valley in north-central Honduras. Lake Yojoa, located in north central Honduras, the only natural lake in Honduras, has been home to human populations for 4000 years, and as such, carries an important sense of place for many Hondurans. Addressing challenges of global freshwater sustainability requires an intimate understanding of ecosystems from across the globe. This RAPID will assess how the increasingly frequent massive rainfall events caused by the recent hurricanes impacts tropical aquatic ecosystems by altering the physical dynamics and water chemistry of tropical lakes and the watersheds that sustain them.This RAPID represents a unique opportunity to close knowledge gaps at the intersection of three deficits in the current understanding of freshwater ecosystems. First, tropical lakes that experience stratification and mixus are understudied compared to their temperate counterparts. Second, lake ecosystems are rarely considered in the context of the watersheds within which they reside. Third, in order to fully understand the impact of global change on aquatic ecosystems, time-series data that can distinguish between intra-annual and inter-annual variability are necessary. This project addresses the impact of two large hurricanes on a monomictic tropical lake in Central America (Lake Yojoa) and its watershed. In doing so, it provides the opportunity to a) advance our understanding of the biogeochemistry of tropical monomictic lakes, b) identify key linkages between watershed-derived-allochthonous nutrient delivery and internal lake biogeochemical dynamics and c) identify the impact of hurricanes on tropical watersheds and the lakes they contain. By rapidly deploying a lake and watershed sampling design and comparing contemporary dynamics to analyses conducted previous to the hurricanes, this RAPID will advance our understanding of these important knowledge gaps within the context of the current understanding of tropical freshwater ecosystems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.