Long-term empirical evidence, early warning signals and multiple drivers of regime shifts in a lake ecosystem

Catastrophic regime shifts in various ecosystems are increasing with the intensification of anthropogenic pressures. Understanding and predicting critical transitions are thus a key challenge in ecology. Previous studies have mainly focused on single environmental drivers (e.g. eutrophication) and early warning signals (EWSs) prior to population collapse. However, how multiple environmental stressors interact to shape ecological behaviour and whether EWSs were detectable prior to the recovery process in lake ecosystems are largely unknown. We present long-term empirical evidence of the critical transition and hysteresis with the combined pressures of climate warming, eutrophication and trophic cascade effects by fish stocking in a subtropical Chinese lake in the Yangtze floodplain. The catastrophic regime shifts are cross-validated by 64-year multi-trophic level monitoring data and paleo-diatom records. We show that EWSs are detectable in both the collapse and recovery trajectories and that including body size information in composite EWSs requires shorter time-series data and can improve the predictive ability of regime shifts. Although full recovery has not yet been observed, EWSs prior to recovery provide us with the opportunity to take measures for a clear-water regime. Climate warming and top-down cascade effects have a negative influence on water clarity by altering lower trophic level abundance and body size, which, in turn, have a negative effect on macrophyte abundance. Furthermore, we identify a shift in the dominant driving forces from bottom-up to top-down after regime shifts, decoupling the relationships between nutrients and biological components and thus decreasing the efficiency of nutrient reduction. Synthesis. This study provides new insights into ecological hysteresis under multiple external stressors and improves our understanding of trait-based early warning signals in both the collapse and recovery processes in natural freshwater ecosystems. For management practice, our work suggests that slowing down climate warming and weakening the fish predation pressure on food webs are necessary to increase the effectiveness of nutrient reduction in the restoration of lakes.

Automated summary

This study presents empirical evidence of critical regime shifts and hysteresis in a subtropical Chinese lake, showing the impacts of climate warming, eutrophication, and trophic cascade effects by fish stocking. Early warning signals were found detectable in both collapse and recovery trajectories, improving predictive ability. Management practices should focus on slowing down climate warming and weakening fish predation pressure to enhance nutrient reduction effectiveness in lake restoration efforts.