Lake ecosystem responses to climate change: does latitude make a difference?
Many patterns and processes at virtually all levels of aquatic ecology have been observed to depend on temperature. The ubiquity of temperature dependence of biomass and ecosystem processing rates is central to concerns about the impact of climate change on lake ecosystems. Here I will present on our recent use of satellite and in situ data from hundreds of lakes around the world to assess global patterns in lake warming rates and ecosystem responses to temperature change. I find that for many ecosystem responses to warming, tropical lake ecosystems may be more sensitive than lakes at higher latitudes due to the non-linearity of relationships between temperature and ecosystem processing rates. Even though tropical lakes tend to have slower surface warming rates, their heightened sensitivity to temperature can cause greater absolute ecosystem changes there in response to climate warming.
Host: Rita Adrian