Journal
JOURNAL OF PALEOLIMNOLOGY
Volume 66, Issue 3, Pages 279-296Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s10933-021-00206-9
Keywords
Late Holocene; Methylheptadecanes; Varves; Anthropocene; Sericytochromatia; Melainabacteria
Funding
- German Environmental Foundation (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt DBU)
- Virtual Institute of Integrated Climate and Landscape Evolution Analyses-ICLEA [VH-VI-415]
- Terrestrial Environmental Observatory Infrastructure Initiative of the Helmholtz Association (TERENO Observatory NE Germany)
- Helmholtz Gemeinschaft (HGF) [VH-NG-919]
- Leibniz Association Grant [SAW-2017-IOW-2]
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This study investigated the dynamics of cyanobacterial communities in Lake Tiefer See sediments over the past 350 years using sedimentary DNA analysis. The results suggest that lake circulation, anoxic conditions, and human-induced eutrophication are the main factors influencing variations in the cyanobacteria community.
Since the beginning of the Anthropocene, lacustrine biodiversity has been influenced by climate change and human activities. These factors advance the spread of harmful cyanobacteria in lakes around the world, which affects water quality and impairs the aquatic food chain. In this study, we assessed changes in cyanobacterial community dynamics via sedimentary DNA (sedaDNA) from well-dated lake sediments of Lake Tiefer See, which is part of the Klocksin Lake Chain spanning the last 350 years. Our diversity and community analysis revealed that cyanobacterial communities form clusters according to the presence or absence of varves. Based on distance-based redundancy and variation partitioning analyses (dbRDA and VPA) we identified that intensified lake circulation inferred from vegetation openness reconstructions, delta C-13 data (a proxy for varve preservation) and total nitrogen content were abiotic factors that significantly explained the variation in the reconstructed cyanobacterial community from Lake Tiefer See sediments. Operational taxonomic units (OTUs) assigned to Microcystis sp. and Aphanizomenon sp. were identified as potential eutrophication-driven taxa of growing importance since circa common era (ca. CE) 1920 till present. This result is corroborated by a cyanobacteria lipid biomarker analysis. Furthermore, we suggest that stronger lake circulation as indicated by non-varved sediments favoured the deposition of the non-photosynthetic cyanobacteria sister clade Sericytochromatia, whereas lake bottom anoxia as indicated by subrecent- and recent varves favoured the Melainabacteria in sediments. Our findings highlight the potential of high-resolution amplicon sequencing in investigating the dynamics of past cyanobacterial communities in lake sediments and show that lake circulation, anoxic conditions, and human-induced eutrophication are main factors explaining variations in the cyanobacteria community in Lake Tiefer See during the last 350 years.
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