Mountain lakes are often situated in protected natural areas, a feature that leads to their role as sentinels of global environmental change. Despite variations in latitude, mountain lakes share many features, including their location in catchments with steep topographic gradients, cold temperatures, high incident solar and ultraviolet radiation (UVR), and prolonged ice and snow cover. These characteristics, in turn, affect mountain lake ecosystem structure, diversity, and productivity. The lakes themselves are mostly small, and up until recently, have been characterized as oligotrophic. This paper provides a review and update of the growing body of research that shows that sediments in remote mountain lakes archive regional and global environmental changes, including those linked to climate change, altered biogeochemical cycles, and changes in dust composition and deposition, atmospheric fertilization, and biological manipulations. These archives provide an important record of global environmental change that pre-dates typical monitoring windows. Paleolimnological research at strategically selected lakes has increased our knowledge of interactions among multiple stressors and their synergistic effects on lake systems. Lakes from transects across steep climate (i.e., temperature and effective moisture) gradients in mountain regions show how environmental change alters lakes in close proximity, but at differing climate starting points. Such research in particular highlights the impacts of melting glaciers on mountain lakes. The addition of new proxies, including DNA-based techniques and advanced stable isotopic analyses, provides a gateway to addressing novel research questions about global environmental change. Recent advances in remote sensing and continuous, high-frequency, limnological measurements will improve spatial and temporal resolution and help to add records to spatial gaps including tropical and southern latitudes. Mountain lake records provide a unique opportunity for global scale assessments that provide knowledge necessary to protect the Earth system.
1.Univ Western Ontario, Dept Geog, 1151 Richmond St North, Richmond, ON N6A 5C2, Canada 2.Colorado State Univ, Nat Resource Ecol Lab, US Geol Survey, Ft Collins, CO 80523 USA 3.Utah State Univ, Dept Watershed Sci, 5210 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322 USA 4.Colorado State Univ, Nat Resource Ecol Lab, Ft Collins, CO 80523 USA 5.Univ Maine, Climate Change Inst, Orono, ME USA 6.Univ Western Ontario, Ctr Teaching & Learning, 1151 Richmond St North, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada 7.Univ Calif Davis, Dept Environm Sci & Policy, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616 USA 8.Czech Acad Sci, Inst Hydrobiol, Biol Ctr, Ceske Budejovice 37005, Czech Republic 9.Univ Innsbruck, Dept Ecol, Technikerstr 25, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria 10.Interuniv Ctr Aquat Ecosyst Res, WasserCluster Lunz, Dr Carl Kupelwieser Promenade 5, A-3293 Lunz Am See, Austria 11.Portland State Univ, Ctr Lakes & Reservoirs, Portland, OR 97203 USA 12.Portland State Univ, Dept Environm Sci & Management, Portland, OR 97203 USA 13.Univ Nevada, Global Water Ctr, 1664 N Virginia St, Reno, NV 89557 USA 14.Univ Nevada, Biol Dept, 1664 N Virginia St, Reno, NV 89557 USA 15.US Geol Survey, Columbia Environm Res Ctr, 4200 East New Haven Rd, Columbia, MO 65201 USA 16.Univ Wisconsin, Dept Forest & Wildlife Ecol, Madison, WI USA 17.Queens Univ, Dept Biol, Paleoecol Environm Assessment & Res Lab, 116 Barrie St, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada 18.Univ Appl Sci & Arts Southern Switzerland, Inst Earth Sci, CH-6952 Canobbio, Switzerland 19.US Geol Survey, INSTAAR, 4001 Discovery Dr, Boulder, CO 80303 USA 20.Colorado State Univ, Dept Fish Wildlife & Conservat Biol, 1474 Campus Delivery, Ft Collins, CO 80523 USA 21.Univ Calif Santa Barbara, Bren Sch Environm Sci & Management, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 USA
Recommended Citation:
Moser, K. A.,Baron, J. S.,Brahney, J.,et al. Mountain lakes: Eyes on global environmental change[J]. GLOBAL AND PLANETARY CHANGE,2019-01-01,178:77-95