Assessing the effects of severe rainstorm-induced mixing on a subtropical, subalpine lake.

Severe rainstorms cause vertical mixing that modifies the internal dynamics (e.g., internal seiche, thermal structure, and velocity filed) in warm polymictic lakes. Yuan Yang Lake (YYL), a subtropical, subalpine, and seasonally stratified small lake in the north-central region of Taiwan, is normally affected by typhoons accompanied with strong wind and heavy rainfall during the summer and fall. In this study, we used the field data, statistical analysis, spectral analysis, and numerical modeling to investigate severe rainstorm-induced mixing in the lake. Statistical determination of the key meteorological and environmental conditions underlying the observed vertical mixing suggests that the vertical mixing, caused by heat loss during severe rainstorms, was likely larger than wind-induced mixing and that high inflow discharge strongly increased heat loss through advection heat. Spectral analysis revealed that internal seiches at the basin scale occurred under non-rainstorm meteorological conditions and that the internal seiches under the rainstorm were modified on the increase of the internal seiche frequencies. Based upon observed frequencies of the internal seiches, a two-dimensional model was simulated and then appropriate velocity patterns of the internal seiches were determined under non-rainstorm conditions. Moreover, the model implemented with inflow boundary condition was conducted for rainstorm events. The model results showed that the severe rainstorms promoted thermal destratification and changed vertical circulation of the basin-scale, internal seiche motion into riverine flow.

Annual patterns in bacterioplankton community variability in a humic lake.

Bacterioplankton community composition (BCC) was monitored in a shallow humic lake in northern Wisconsin, USA, over 3 years using automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis (ARISA). Comparison of ARISA profiles of bacterial communities over time indicated that BCC was highly variable on a seasonal and annual scale. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis indicated little similarity in BCC from year to year. Nevertheless, annual patterns in bacterioplankton community diversity were observed. Trends in bacterioplankton community diversity were correlated to annual patterns in community succession observed for phytoplankton and zooplankton populations, consistent with the notion that food web interactions affect bacterioplankton community structure in this humic lake. Bacterioplankton communities experience a dramatic drop in richness and abundance each year in early summer, concurrent with an increase in the abundance of both mixotrophic and heterotrophic flagellates. A second drop in richness, but not abundance, is observed each year in late summer, coinciding with an intense bloom of the nonphagotrophic dinoflagellate Peridinium limbatum. A relationship between bacterial community composition, size, and abundance and the population dynamics of Daphnia was also observed. The noted synchrony between these major population and species shifts suggests that linkages across trophic levels play a role in determining the annual time course of events for the microbial and metazoan components of the plankton.

Temporal patterns in bacterial communities in three temperate lakes of different trophic status.

Despite considerable attention in recent years, the composition and dynamics of lake bacterial communities over annual time scales are poorly understood. This study used automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis (ARISA) to explore the patterns of change in lake bacterial communities in three temperate lakes over 2 consecutive years. The study lakes included a humic lake, an oligotrophic lake, and a eutrophic lake, and the epilimnetic bacterial communities were sampled every 2 weeks. The patterns of change in bacterial communities indicated that seasonal forces were important in structuring the behavior of the bacterial communities in each lake. All three lakes had relatively stable community composition in spring and fall, but summer changes were dramatic. Summertime variability was often characterized by recurrent drops in bacterial diversity. Specific ARISA fragments derived from these lakes were not constant among lakes or from year to year, and those fragments that did recur in lakes in different years did not exhibit the same seasonal pattern of recurrence. Nonetheless, seasonal patterns observed in 2000 were fairly successful predictors of the rate of change in bacterial communities and in the degree of autocorrelation of bacterial communities in 2001. Thus, seasonal forces may be important structuring elements of these systems as a whole even if they are uncoupled from the dynamics of the individual system components.

Carbon dioxide supersaturation in the surface waters of lakes.

Data on the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (CO(2)) in the surface waters from a large number of lakes (1835) with a worldwide distribution show that only a small proportion of the 4665 samples analyzed (less than 10 percent) were within +/-20 percent of equilibrium with the atmosphere and that most samples (87 percent) were supersaturated. The mean partial pressure of CO(2) averaged 1036 microatmospheres, about three times the value in the overlying atmosphere, indicating that lakes are sources rather than sinks of atmospheric CO(2). On a global scale, the potential efflux of CO(2) from lakes (about 0.14 x 10(15) grams of carbon per year) is about half as large as riverine transport of organic plus inorganic carbon to the ocean. Lakes are a small but potentially important conduit for carbon from terrestrial sources to the atmospheric sink.