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Aquatic ecology

A lake's life is not its own

Nature volume 408, pages 149–150 (2000)Cite this article

Imagine a landscape suddenly released from the frozen grip of a kilometre-thick glacier. Bare rock crumbles to pockets of dust that harbour sprouting seeds, and soon patches of plant species adapted to this environment appear. As the environment gradually changes, the ensuing development of the flora — a process known as succession —proceeds roughly in step with predictions from theories of plant community dynamics. As ecology goes, we have a good idea of what happens in these circumstances.

But what of the numerous lakes left in depressions after the glacier has retreated? Surely science can also predict their development? Well. . . no. Unlike terrestrial ecology, which is founded in part on numerous studies of plant succession, aquatic ecologists have only the sketchiest of ideas about succession in lakes; there is no workable theory of how their chemistry and biology evolve. On page 161 of this issue1, Engstrom et al. present a powerful data set that provides insights into what happens in the first few years of a lake's life — and also the following thousands of years. More importantly, they can give reasons why the lakes they studied evolved as they did.

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Figure 1: Variation of organic-carbon content and δ 13C value in the sediments of two lakes in arctic Alaska5.

References

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  1. Department of Biology University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 48109-1048, Michigan, USA

    George W. Kling

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  1. George W. Kling
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Correspondence to George W. Kling.

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Kling, G. A lake's life is not its own. Nature 408, 149–150 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35041659

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