Abstract
Inland lakes are important ecosystems for the carbon cycle at both regional and global scales. However, a knowledge gap still exists about the correlations between the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) and nutrient dynamics in lakes. In this study, we analysed the long-term dynamics of nutrient and pCO2 in Taihu Lake. Strong spatial heterogeneity was observed with highest nutrient concentrations occurring in the River mouth and significant lower concentrations (p < 0.01) occurring in East Taihu and Other zone. For pCO2, the average values were 1136.81 ± 1240.16 μatm, 433.07 ± 305.45 μatm, and 487.05 ± 414.02 μatm in Rive mouth, East Taihu, and Other zone, respectively. Statistical analysis revealed that pCO2 was significantly and positively related to nutrient (TN: total nitrogen and NH4+: ammonium) concentrations (p < 0.01), but negatively related to Chla (Chlorophyll a) concentrations in River mouth and Other zone (p < 0.01). The parallelism of nutrient concentrations and pCO2 in Taihu Lake highlights the dual effects of external pollution inputs from the surrounding catchment. In addition, progressive mitigation was found for not only nutrients but also pCO2, which was attributed to the previous effort in the environmental protections in Taihu Lake basin. Our results also suggest the importance of long-term monitoring for the future assessment of anthropogenic impacts on nutrient and CO2 dynamics in freshwater lakes.
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Acknowledgements
We thanks to the Taihu Laboratory for Lake Ecosystem Research, which organized the long-term monitoring, and we also thanks to the National Ecosystem Observation and Research Network (https://cnern.org.cn.2015) for providing the long-term dataset. This research was supported by CHINA SCHOLARSHIP COUNCIL (CSC, NO. 201806860053), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41703105). Xingcheng Yan was also pleased to thank Yang Su for her encouragement in this study.
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Yan, X., Wu, S., Xu, J. et al. Parallelism of Nutrients and CO2 Dynamics: Evidence Based on Long-Term Data in Taihu Lake. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 105, 742–749 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-020-03009-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-020-03009-2