Affiliation:
1. Department of Biology, University of Regina, Regina, SK S4S 0A2, Canada.
2. Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment, Regina, SK S4S 5W6, Canada.
Abstract
We used zooplankton communities as indicators to evaluate the potential influence of acidifying–eutrophying emissions from the Athabasca oil sands region (AOSR) on 244 downwind lakes in northwest Saskatchewan. The impacts of regional environmental change on zooplankton communities are determined by responses of resident species to altered local environmental conditions as well as changes in composition due to dispersal processes. To test and quantify the relative importance of these individual processes, we conducted ordination analyses, spatial modeling, and variation partitioning. Local environmental factors were the dominant determinants of community structure, including two major environmental gradients susceptible to atmospheric emissions (i.e., acid–base status and productivity). Spatial structuring of these factors induced similar spatial structures in zooplankton distribution across the region. However, disentangling any impacts of the AOSR on these environment–spatial–species relationships from the underlying natural variability was precluded by unavailability of baseline data. Nevertheless, as our findings indicate that dispersal of zooplankton was not strongly limiting across this broad geographic region, zooplankton indicators can be crucial to detect future environmental changes in lakes across northwest Saskatchewan.
Publisher
Canadian Science Publishing
Subject
Aquatic Science,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Reference119 articles.
1. Acton, D.F., Padbury, G.A., and Stushnoff, C.T. 1998. The ecoregions of Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management and Canadian Plains Research Center, University of Regina, Regina.
2. Aherne, J., and Shaw, D.P. (Editors). 2010. Impacts of sulphur and nitrogen deposition in western Canada. J. Limnol. 69(Suppl. 1). 10.4081/jlimnol.2010.s1.1.
3. Competition and the Relative Abundances of Two Cladocerans
4. Anas, M.U.M. 2012. Zooplankton as indicators to detect and track degree of acid-stress to lake ecosystems [online]. M.Sc. thesis, Department of Biology, University of Regina. Available from http://dspace.cc.uregina.ca/dspace/bitstream/10294/3562/1/Anas_Mohamed_Usoof_Mohamed_MSC_BIOL_Fall2012.pdf [accessed 25 August 2013].
5. Suitability of presence vs. absence indicator species to characterize stress gradients: Lessons from zooplankton species of boreal lakes
Cited by
11 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献