Spatial early warning signals in a lake manipulation
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Abstract
Rapid changes in state have been documented for many of Earth's ecosystems. Despite a growing toolbox of methods for detecting declining resilience or early warning indicators (EWIs) of ecosystem transitions, these methods have rarely been evaluated in whole-ecosystem trials using reference ecosystems. In this study, we experimentally tested EWIs of cyanobacteria blooms based on changes in the spatial structure of a lake. We induced a cyanobacteria bloom by adding nutrients to an experimental lake and mapped fine-resolution spatial patterning of cyanobacteria using a mobile sensor platform. Prior to the bloom, we detected theoretically predicted spatial EWIs based on variance and spatial autocorrelation, as well as a new index based on the extreme values. Changes in EWIs were not discernible in an unenriched reference lake. Despite the fluid environment of a lake where spatial heterogeneity driven by biological processes may be overwhelmed by physical mixing, spatial EWIs detected an approaching bloom suggesting the utility of spatial metrics for signaling ecological thresholds.
| Publication type | Article |
|---|---|
| Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
| Title | Spatial early warning signals in a lake manipulation |
| Series title | Ecosphere |
| DOI | 10.1002/ecs2.1941 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Year Published | 2017 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Ecological Society of America |
| Contributing office(s) | Wisconsin Water Science Center |
| Description | e01941; 11 p. |
| First page | 1 |
| Last page | 11 |
| Google Analytic Metrics | Metrics page |