Long-Term Changes in the Large Lake Ecosystems
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Tatyana I. Moiseenko1*, Andrey N. Sharov2, Alexey A. Voinov3, Alexandr D. Shalabodov 4 1 V.I. Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry of RAS Kosygin Street 19, Moscow, 119991 Russian Federation; Tel.: +7 495 9393810, Fax: +7 495 9382054 * Corresponding author; e-mail: [email protected] 2 Northern Water Problems Institute, Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, A.Nevsky 50, 185030, Petrozavodsk, Russian Federation; Tel. +7 8 122307838, e-mail: [email protected] 3 Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) ENVIRONMENT University of Twente P.O. Box 6, 7500 AA Enschede, The Netherlands; Tel.: +31 (0) 53 4874507 67 4 Tyumen State University of Russia; Semakova Street 10, 625003 Tyumen, Russian Federation; Tel.: (3452) 461131, Fax: (3452) 41-00-59, e-mail: [email protected] LONG-TERM CHANGES IN THE LARGE LAKE ECOSYSTEMS UNDER POLLUTION: THE CASE OF THE NORTH-EAST EUROPEAN LAKES ABSTRACT. A retrospective analysis of of the communities. Accumulated nutrients aquatic ecosystem long-term changes in in ecosystems are efficiently utilized at the the Russian large lakes: Ladoga, Onega, upper trophic level. The ecosystem state and Imandra, is given. The lakes in the after decrease of the toxic impact indicates past were oligotrophic and similar in formation of its mature and more stable their origin, water chemistry and fauna. modification, which differs from a natural The ecosystems transformed under the one. impact of pollution with toxic substances and nutrients. There are three stages of KEY WORDS: long-term pollution, aquatic ecosystem quality: background parameters ecosystem, reference condition, disturbance, and degradation and recovery trends after recovery. the decrease of the toxic stress. On the stage of degradation, species abundance and community biodiversity were decreased. INTRODUCTION Eurybiontic species abundance and biomass Prolonged anthropogenic pollution of the were increased due to lack of competitive environment, which dates back to the connections in toxic conditions and period of industrial revolution in the 18th biogenic inflow. Small forms of organisms century, dramatically manifested itself in (r-strategists), providing more rapid biomass negative environmental changes in the turnover in ecosystem, dominated in the mid-19th century. Numerous investigations formed plankton communities. On the have given insight into the regularities stage of decrease of the toxic pollution, the of the anthropogenic environmental lakes recolonization with northern species transformations and the responses of occurs, which is confirmed by replacement biologic systems to anthropogenic of dominating complexes, increasing index stress and revealed the severe hazard of plankton community biodiversity, and of environmental pollution by toxic the rise of the mass of individual organisms substances. gi112.indd 67 21.03.2012 10:05:34 In view of the cardinal importance of fresh The representative example of long-term water for the survival of the Earth’s population multi-contaminating pollution is the large and its species diversity, the importance of Russian lakes: Lake Ladoga, Lake Onega and the recovery of aquatic ecosystems and the the subarctic lake of Imandra (Fig. 1). These preservation of their habitat is also evident. three lakes, situated in the North-West of Russia, are characterized by one genesis of It is worth mentioning that, as a rule, aquatic ecosystem formation during the postglacier ecosystems experience a multi-contaminant period; for this reason they have common stress. Hence, their degradation and recovery characteristics of water chemistry, as well as ENVIRONMENT develop in a complicated, non-linear, and of fauna. often unpredictable way. The ecological 68 theory plays a key role in understanding Objectives: the anthropogenic successions and the regularities of recovery. If the trajectories of to make a retrospective analysis of conditions successions of communities and ecosystems of ecosystem elements and estimate their under the conditions of increasing and reference conditions on the base of a time- decreasing anthropogenic loads are known, space analysis of dominant characteristics of it is possible to efficiently accelerate the the ecosystems; processes of ecosystems recovery. The recovery of aquatic ecosystems due to to reveal the main consistent patterns decreasing anthropogenic inputs, including of successions of water ecosystems of toxic pollutants, has been well documented northern lakes under anthropogenic load in the scientific literature [Cairns, 2005; Harris, and their reduction: from background 2006; Palmer et al., 2007]. During the latest characteristics – through degradation – to years, there has been a distinct tendency recovery; towards the decline of dangerous pollutants’ stream into environment, including water. to explain the trajectory of these changes Science has been compiling information on according to the ecology theory and to ecosystems recovery after the contaminating estimate the ability of ecosystems to recover disturbance. However, only recently scientists after toxic disturbance. have been attempting to predict all the scenarios of ecosystems recovery, including This paper is based on an analytical review their successions after toxic disturbance of the relevant published results and also [Cairns, 2005]. Many scientists raise a on more than 30-year investigations of the question: is it possible for ecosystems to authors in this region [Krokhin, Semenovich, recover after toxic disturbance, or they attain 1940; Moiseenko et al., 1996; Moiseenko, a new configuration? Yakovlev, 1990; Moiseenko, Kudrjavtzeva, 2002; Antopogenic Modification, 2002]. Water ecosystems, as a rule, suffer multi- Although much information is available, contaminating disturbance and that is why there has been no continuous long-term such processes as degradations and recoveries monitoring of the lakes and, therefore, this proceed completely, nonlinearly, and often paper is based on discontinuous information. incalculably. The ecology theory plays a key In this review, attention is focused on the role in understanding of anthropogenic main parameters of water chemistry and key successions and recovery mechanism. indicators of phytoplankton, zooplankton, Knowing trajectory of successions of benthos, and fish conditions that reflect communities and ecosystems in conditions ecosystem changes during different periods of increasing and decreasing pressure, one for Volkhov Bay of Ladoga Lake, Kondopoga can coordinate actions aimed at acceleration Bay of Onega Lake and the Bol’shaya Imandra of ecosystem recovery processes [Depledge, basin that suffered from the pollution of 1999; Palmer et al., 2007]. water with toxic agents and nutrients. ggi112.inddi112.indd 6688 221.03.20121.03.2012 110:05:350:05:35 ENVIRONMENT 69 Fig. 1. MapFig. of 1. Imandra, Onega, and Ladoga lakes and locations of the main industries on their shores ggi112.inddi112.indd 6699 221.03.20121.03.2012 110:05:350:05:35 CHARACTERISTICS AND REFERENCE chemical weathering processes, and slow CONDITIONS OF THE LAKES element cycling) form clear waters (the sum of ions is 20–55 mg/l). Prior to the 1930s, Lakes of Ladoga, Onega, and Imandra are the lakes were typically oligothrophic with situated in the North-Taiga ecoregion in hydrocarbonate–calcium salt contents, low the European part of Russia; Imandra lake concentrations of suspended material and is above the Polar cycle. Knowledge of microelements; phosphor content (especially reference conditions (ecological conditions its bioavailable phosphates) was too low. found at undisturbed or minimally disturbed High N/P ratio (43–45) limit productional ENVIRONMENT sites) is important when trying to manage processes by phosphor content. In general, anthropogenic stress [Falk et al., 2006]. The nutrients and organic substances increase 70 background conditions of the lake prior to from arctic Imandra Lake to Ladoga, located industrialization provide a benchmark for in the Northern Taiga. Water inhabitants water quality and ecosystem recovery. of the three lakes are typical oligotrophic cold-water species. Content and structure of Ladoga, which is the largest lake of Europe, phytoplankton from the investigated lakes is is one of the 15 largest freshwater reservoirs mainly similar to the content and structure in the world. The state of the environment in of deep oligotrophic lakes [Lake Onega..., the Ladoga area affects the life standard of 1999; Lake Ladoga..., 2002; Anthropogenic several million people living in 258 300 km2 modification..., 2002]. Dominant species in of the lake watershed area, which includes the three lakes are shown in Table 1, basic a great part of the Russian north-west and quantitative indexes, describing condition of eastern Finland. Lake Ladoga covers an area natural ecosystems of these lakes during the of 17 700 km2 (with its islands, 18 135 km2). pre-industrial period, are shown in Table 2. The main feeder rivers are the Volkhov, Svir, and Vuoksa, and the lake’s outlet is by way The table is compiled using data from: of the Neva River into the Gulf of Finland. Its Voronikhin (1935); Poretskij et al. (1934); maximum depth is 230 m. Krokhin and Semenovich (1940); Berg and Pravdin (1948); Sokolova (1956); Petrova Onega is the second largest lake in Europe (1987, 1971); Moiseenko and Yakovlev (1990), after Lake Ladoga. The area of the lake is Petrovskaya (1966); Nikolayev (1972); Vandish 9800 km2, and the volume is 262 km3,