Revisiting lakes within the Rideau Canal system (Ontario, Canada) to assess the impacts of multiple environmental stressors over the past ~25 years using diatom-based paleolimnology
Accepted: 11 January 2025
Supplementary: 11
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Authors
Diatom-based paleolimnological studies conducted ~25 years ago on five lakes (i.e., Big Rideau, Upper Rideau, Lower Rideau, Indian and Otter lakes) within the Rideau Canal system (Ontario, Canada) tracked extensive catchment disturbances related to canal construction (starting ca. 1828). Over the past three decades, these lakes have experienced additional environmental stressors including invasive zebra mussels and accelerated climate warming, warranting a paleolimnological re-assessment. We examine diatom compositional changes and visible range spectroscopy-inferred chlorophyll-a (VRS-Chla) trends over the past >200 years from sediment cores collected in 2019-2020 from these same lakes, with the aim of assessing environmental changes registered in these records since the original studies were undertaken ~25-30 years ago. Despite large-scale cultural disturbances, including extensive deforestation and flooding for canal construction, the most ecologically notable diatom changes in all sediment records occurred in the past ~25-30 years, and coincided with increases in VRS-Chla. During this recent period, small cyclotelloid and elongate planktonic diatoms increased in relative abundance, while large-celled Aulacoseira taxa declined. Exceptions to this trend include Upper Rideau Lake, where planktonic diatoms were scarce throughout the core and shifts occurred among benthic taxa, and Big Rideau Lake, which has a large littoral zone, where epiphytic diatoms became prominent in the past decade. These recent diatom changes could not be explained by nutrient enrichment, as measured total phosphorus (TP) concentrations have declined significantly since the 1970s. Increases in small planktonic taxa in some of the lakes also pre-date the ca. 1990 arrival of zebra mussels. We conclude that these recent changes were best explained by regional warming and declining wind speed resulting in new lake physical regimes. Such climate-driven changes are also consistent with the recent development of cyanobacterial blooms in these lakes, despite declining nutrient levels.
Edited by
Andrea Lami, CNR-IRSA Water Research Institute, Verbania-Pallanza, ItalySupporting Agencies
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Rideau Lakes Environmental FoundationHow to Cite

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Similar Articles
- Joanna Cieślewicz, Mirosław Kobierski, Marcin Cichosz, Geochemical assessment of lake sediments in protected areas in Poland – a search for reference condition , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 77 No. 1 (2018)
- Marco CANTONATI, Horst LANGE-BERTALOT, Diatom monitors of close-to-pristine, very-low alkalinity habitats: three new Eunotia species from springs in Nature Parks of the south-eastern Alps , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 70 No. 2 (2011)
- Mina NASR, Mark CASTONGUAY, Jae OGILVIE, Beverley A. RAYMOND†, Paul A. ARP, Modelling and mapping critical loads and exceedances for the Georgia Basin, British Columbia, using a zero base-cation depletion criterion , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 69 No. s1 (2010): Impacts of sulphur and nitrogen deposition in western Canada
- Pedro M. SÁNCHEZ-CASTILLO, Eduardo J. LINARES-CUESTA, D. FERNÁNDEZ-MORENO, Changes in epilithic diatom assemblages in a Mediterranean high mountain lake (Laguna de La Caldera, Sierra Nevada, Spain) after a period of drought , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 67 No. 1 (2008)
- Victor ALEKSEEV, Effects of diel vertical migration on ephippia production in Daphnia , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 63 No. s1 (2004): Diapause In Aquatic Invertebrates
- Cristiana CALLIERI, John STOCKNER, Picocyanobacteria success in oligotrophic lakes: fact or fiction? , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 59 No. 1 (2000)
- Roberta Minutoli, Antonia Granata, Letterio Guglielmo, Potential use of ecotoxicological biomarkers in Serratella ignita (Ephemeroptera) larvae for Alcantara river (Sicily, Italy) water quality assessment , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 72 No. 2 (2013)
- Javier Sánchez-Hernández, Fernando Cobo, Ontogenetic shifts in terrestrial reliance of stream-dwelling brown trout , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 75 No. 2 (2016)
- Rocio Fernandez, Sarma Nandini, S.S.S. Nandini, Maria E. Castellanos-Páez, Demographic responses of Heterocypris incongruens (Ostracoda) related to stress factors of competition, predation and food , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 75 No. s1 (2016): Proceedings of the 6th National Congress of Limnology
- Martin Bláha, Filip Ložek, Miloš Buřič, Antonín Kouba, Pavel Kozák, Native European branchiobdellids on non-native crayfishes: Report from the Czech Republic , Journal of Limnology: Vol. 77 No. 1 (2018)
<< < 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 > >>
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.