Climate change has significantly altered the energy dynamics of lakes; however, little is known of how the temporal and spatial variation in energy fluxes impacts the structure and function of lake ecosystems. This study combined long‐term (2011–2018) measurements of lake energy fluxes with environmental, nutrient, and phytoplankton data at five stations to investigate the effects of variably energy fluxes on phytoplankton pro...

Climate‐induced variation in lake level can affect physicochemical properties of endorheic lakes, but its consequences for phototrophic production and regime shifts are not well understood. Here, we quantified changes in the abundance and community composition of phototrophs in Kenosee and White Bear lakes, two endorheic basins in the parkland Moose Mountain uplands of southeastern Saskatchewan, Canada, which have experienced...

The influence of climate change on the ecological impacts of invasive alien species (IAS) remains understudied, with deoxygenation of aquatic environments often-overlooked as a consequence of climate change. Here, we therefore assessed how oxygen saturation affects the ecological impact of a predatory invasive fish, the Ponto-Caspian round goby ( Neogobius melanostomus ), relative to a co-occurring endangered European native a...

Pollution with nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) impairs streams by favoring suspended algae and cyanobacteria over diatom‐rich periphyton. Recently, wastewater treatment plants have been upgraded to biological nutrient removal to eliminate both P and N (mainly NH 4 + ), although little is known of the effects of this effluent on flowing waters. Here, we used high performance liquid chromatography to quantify how the abundance...

This study evaluated the status of native and stocked fish species in 13 prairie lakes in central Canada over eight years (2007–14) using three metrics: resource‐use (benthic versus pelagic carbon via stable isotopes); body condition (relative weight index W r ); and parasite load (cestode gut enumerations). Analyses included game and non‐game fishes, like naturally occurring northern pike, Esox lucius L., and yellow perch, Pe...

The introduction of salmonids into lakes of western North America for sport fishing is a widespread phenomenon. While numerous investigations have documented cascading trophic interactions upon the introduction of fish into naturally fishless systems, little research has been done to investigate the importance of natural fish status (fishless vs. fish bearing) in modulating historical food web response to dual forcing by botto...

The Laurentian Great Lakes have been subject to substantial modification from diverse anthropogenic stressors, including nutrient enrichment, climate change, chemical and biological pollutants, and invasive species, yet little is known of the relative historical influence of these factors. Here we analyze diverse fossil metrics from vibracores at two sites, a bay area (Anchor Bay) and a tributary (Clinton River) in the Lake St...

Biogeochemical processes are active year‐round in ice‐covered lakes, such that processes in one season can affect limnological conditions in subsequent seasons. However, the extent and nature of these legacy effects are poorly understood, particularly for the CO 2 content of lakes and when considering gas exchange with the atmosphere. Here, we used a unique 36‐yr dataset of weekly limnological measurements of Buffalo Pound Lak...

Previous research suggests that fertilization of surface waters with chemically reduced nitrogen (N), including ammonium (NH 4 + ), may either enhance or suppress phytoplankton growth. To identify the factors influencing the net effect of NH 4 + , we fertilized natural phytoplankton assemblages from two eutrophic hardwater lakes with growth‐saturating concentrations of NH 4 Cl in 241 incubation experiments conducted biweekly M...

Freshwater ecosystems are threatened by multiple anthropogenic stressors acting over different spatial and temporal scales, resulting in toxic algal blooms, reduced water quality and hypoxia. However, while catchment characteristics act as a ‘filter’ modifying lake response to disturbance, little is known of the relative importance of different drivers and possible differentiation in the response of upland remote lakes in comp...

Planted forests are increasing in many upland regions worldwide, but knowledge about their potential effects on algal communities of catchment lakes is relatively unknown. Here, the effects of afforestation were investigated using palaeolimnology at six upland lake sites in the north‐west of Ireland subject to different extents of forest plantation cover (4–64% of catchment area). 210 Pb‐dated sediment cores were analysed for...

Rising atmospheric [CO 2 ], c a , is expected to affect stomatal regulation of leaf gas‐exchange of woody plants, thus influencing energy fluxes as well as carbon (C), water, and nutrient cycling of forests. Researchers have proposed various strategies for stomatal regulation of leaf gas‐exchange that include maintaining a constant leaf internal [CO 2 ], c i , a constant drawdown in CO 2 ( c a − c i ), and a constant c i / c a...

Ecologists have long been fascinated by cyclic population fluctuations, because they suggest strong interactions between exploiter and victim species. Nonetheless, even for populations showing high‐amplitude fluctuations, it is often hard to identify which species are the key drivers of the dynamics, because data are generally only available for a single species. Here, we use a paleoecological approach to investigate fluctuati...

Coherent timing of agricultural expansion, fertilizer application, atmospheric nutrient deposition, and accelerated global warming is expected to promote synchronous fertilization of regional surface waters and coherent development of algal blooms and lake eutrophication. While broad‐scale cyanobacterial expansion is evident in global meta‐analyses, little is known of whether lakes in discrete catchments within a common lake d...

Increases in atmospheric temperature and nutrients from land are thought to be promoting the expansion of harmful cyanobacteria in lakes worldwide, yet to date there has been no quantitative synthesis of long‐term trends. To test whether cyanobacteria have increased in abundance over the past ~ 200 years and evaluate the relative influence of potential causal mechanisms, we synthesised 108 highly resolved sedimentary time seri...