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A Chironomid-Based Reconstruction of Late Holocene Climate Change in Southern Costa Rica

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A Chironomid-Based Reconstruction of Late Holocene Climate Change in Southern Costa Rica A CHIRONOMID-BASED RECONSTRUCTION OF LATE HOLOCENE CLIMATE CHANGE IN SOUTHERN COSTA RICA By JIAYING WU ABSTRACT The modern distribution of sub-fossil chironomids in Costa Rica is described making use of a fifty-four lake calibration set. The relationship between modern chironomid distribution and the measured limnological variables indicated that surface water temperature (SWT) accounts for a statistically significant amount of variance in the chironomid communities. A chironomid- based inference model for SWT, developed using weighted-averaging partial least squares, was applied to sub-fossil midge assemblages from Laguna Zoncho, Costa Rica, to reconstruct late Holocene thermal variability. The major findings of this study are: (1) SWT between1750 and 3100 cal yr BP was higher than the late Holocene average, (2) southern Costa Rica was characterized by below average temperatures during the Little Ice Age, and (3) Laguna Zoncho experienced very low lake levels, possibly reflecting drought, during the Medieval Climate Anomaly. This study pioneers the use of sub-fossil chironomid remains to develop quantitative estimates of Holocene thermal variability in Central America. INDEX WORDS: Paleoclimate; Temperature; Chironomid; Holocence; Costa Rica; Little Ice Age. 1 A CHIRONOMID-BASED RECONSTRUCTION OF LATE HOLOCENE CLIMATE CHANGE IN SOUTHERN COSTA RICA By JIAYING WU BS, China Agricultural University, 2010 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTERS OF SCIENCE ATHENS, GEORGIA 2012 2 ©2012 Jiaying Wu All Rights Reserved 3 A CHIRONOMID-BASED RECONSTRUCTION OF LATE HOLOCENE CLIMATE CHANGE IN SOUTHERN COSTA RICA By JIAYING WU Major Professor: David F. Porinchu Committee: George A. Brook David S. Leigh Thomas L. Mote Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia December 2012 4 DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to my dearest Mum and Dad, who have always supported me, to my boyfriend, Yihuan Zhang, who accompanies me whenever I need to, and to my advisor, Dr. David Porinchu, who has been patient to me all the time and teach me to never give up. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank a number of individuals who have played a part in the completion of this thesis. Without their kind assistance, my research would have been possible. First and foremost, I would like to my greatest thanks to my advisor, Dr. David F Porinchu. It was him that guided me with the most patience, encouraged me with the most optimistic spirit and helped me to adapt the “cultural difference” during all my study. He made me believe that “losers are just people who chose to give up before reaching their success”. I also owe great thanks to Dr. Sally P. Horn (University of Tennessee) and Dr. Kurt A. Haberyan (Northwest Missouri State University), who kindly provided me with the sediment samples and environmental data, and to all my committee members, Dr. David S. Leigh, Dr. George A. Brook and Dr. Thomas L. Mote, whose advice and support have accompanied me throughout the research. This thesis would not have been completed without any of you. Besides, many thanks are going to one of my seniors and colleagues, Lixin Wang, who really opened my mind and imparted me the geographic and geomorphological knowledge, and to Scott Reinemann, who offered great help to me on performing statistical analysis and by sharing his valuable statistical resource with me. I also sincerely appreciate Theresa Andersen, Craig Ramseyer, Ray Koplin, Dr. Quint Newcomer and Costa Rican Meteorological Institution for their assistance on the collection of Costa Rican air temperature data. Xuebin Wei, Yu Luo, Christopher Strother and Yijie Chen, I also owe a special ‘thanks’ to all of you for your time and help on my work of GIS mapping and data extraction. Thank you, Audrey Hawkins, Emily Duggar, Loretta Scott and Danielle Haskett, you treated me as families, and Nicholas Gonsalves, Gloria Howerton and Leanne Perdum, your friendship is always supportive. v Lastly, I would like to thank my family and friends who are not here in Athens but also supported me all the time. Dear Mum and Dad, you never give me any pressure and thank you for respecting all my decision and make me feel understood. Yihuan Zhang, it is you that accompanies me all the time and gives me continuous emotional concerning. I never felt any loneliness because of you. Nairui Guo, Xiang Li and Ruiqiao Jiang, your words and encouragement make me strong and brave enough to overcome all difficulties, and I will always remember the great times we had together. Last but not the least, I would also like to thank the Department of Geography of University of Georgia, for sponsoring me to present at the 2012 AAG conference. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Pages ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………..………………………………………………v LIST OF TABLES…………………………..………………………………………….….....ix LIST OF FIGURES………………….………………………………………………….…….x CHAPTERS 1 INTRODUCTION…………………………...………………………………………………..1 2 STUDY SITES Geology…………………………...…………………….…………………………….……….9 Climate…………………………………..…………………………………………...…10 Glacial History …………………………………..………………………………………..…12 Vegetation……………………………………..……………………………………….….…15 Settlement History………………………………..………………………….……...15 3 METHODOLOGY Calibration Set Development……………………………………..….……...………….……19 Late Holocene Sediment…………………………………………..……………………...….21 Laboratory Analyses………………….…………………….…………...……..23 Statistical Analyses……………………………………………….……………..……25 Air Temperature Data Estimation ……………………………………………..…….30 4 RESULTS Modern Distribution of Midges…………………………….…………………...……32 Quantitative Inference Model Development …………………………………..….…44 Age-depth Modeling………………….……………………...…….....…………........47 vii Late Holocene Midge Stratigraphy, Laguna Zoncho……………………….........…..48 Application and Performance of Midge-based SWT Inference Model ……….….53 5 DISCUSSION and LINKAGE TO LITTLE ICE AGE……………….……......……55 6 CONCLUSTION Modern Chironomid Communities………………..……………...….…...…...…..74 Late Holocene Midge Community Change ……………...……………….….……76 REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………………..79 APPENDCES…………………………...…………………………..………………..97 viii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 3.1 Geographic and limnological data for the fifty-four Costa Rican lakes calibration set (Horn, 1990; Horn, 1993; Horn and Haberyan, 1993, in pressing; Horn, 2007)………………28 Table 3.2 Ten-year (1988-1997) mean air temperature for Costa Rica extracted from the NOAA NCEP CPC GHCN_CAMS gridded air temperature data (at 0.5° longtitude x 0.5° latitude of spatial resolution). The three types of air temperature used in this study are SATA_10 (summer air temperature average for the interval of 1988-1997), AMAT_10 (annual mean air temperature for the interval of 1988-1997) and JMAT_10 (July mean air temperature for the interval of 1988-1997). (http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/.NOAA/.NCEP/.CPC/.GHCN_CAMS/.gridded/.deg0 p5/.temp/%20) .............................................................................................................................29 Table 4.1 Thirty-nine lakes with the full suite of limnological and climate data used in direct gradient analyses………………………………………..…………………..………..34 Table 4.2 The ratios of the eigenvalues (λ) of the 1st (constrained) CCA axis to the eigenvalues of the 2nd (unconstrained) CCA axis based on the thirty-nine lake dataset……..........................35 Table 4.3 Summary of partial CCAs based on chironomid assemblages from the thirty-nine lake training set. …………………………………………………………………………………….35 Table 4.4 Performance statistics for the five different midge-based inference models for surface water temperature (SWT)…………………………………………………………………….….45 Table 5.1 Comparison of the existing chironomid-based inference models for lake surface water temperature…………………………………………………..…………………………………..60 ix LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 2.1 Location of lakes in the fifty-four Costa Rican lake calibration set and regional vegetation types (Haberyan et al., 2003; Horn and Haberyan, in press; modified by Wu)……...14 Figure 3.1 Location of La Chonta bog and the lakes incorporated in the Costa Rican calibration set (Clement and Horn, 2001; modified by Wu)……………………………………………… 20 Figure 3.2 Profile across part of southern Costa Rica illustrating the topographic setting of Laguna Zoncho and other locations mentioned in text (Clement and Horn, 2001)…………...…21 Figure 3.3 A photo of Laguna Zoncho (Picture taken by Sally.P. Horn) ………..................…..22 Figure 3.4 Procedure for extracting and identifying subfossil midge remains. (A) Sediment is treated with an 8% KOH solution and heated at 50°C for ~30 minutes to facilitate the break-up of colloidal matter. (B) A dissection microscope at 50X and a Bogorov plankton counting tray are used to separate the chironomid head capsules from the sediment matrix. (C) The chironomid remains are permanently mounted on slides in Entellan for identification. (D) Chironomid head capsules prepared for making permanent slides. (E) A photograph of a Chironomus head capsule at 400x…………..….…...………………………………………………………………………24 Figure 3.5. Map of grid points associated with the gridded air temperature datadaset………....30 Figure 3.6 Interpolated annual mean air temperature (AMAT_10) from NOAA database (1988- 1997). Green dots are the 0.5 x 0.5 grid points, red dots represent the location of the fifty-four lakes included in the calibration set……………………….………………………………………..……31 Figure 3.7 Interpolated summer air temperature average values (SATA_10)
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