Recent human-induced ecological changes in a Neotropical karst lake of southern Mexico

作者：Margarita Caballero, Matthew N. Waters, Montserrat Amezcua, Ana Carolina Ruíz-Fernández, Itzel Sigala, Javier Alcocer · 发表于：CATENA · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.catena.2025.109119 · 被引用次数：4 · 研究领域：Aquatic Ecosystems and Phytoplankton Dynamics、Geology and Paleoclimatology Research、Karst Systems and Hydrogeology

• Anthropogenic eutrophication of currently ultraoligotrophic Lake Montebello started around 1950–1960. • Primary production increased between 1960 to 2010, leading to a dense periphytic vegetation cover. • Current condition dates only to ~2010, after an episode of increased turbidity and reduced light penetration. • Diatom community shifted from periphytic to pelagic and smaller taxa, better suited to nutrient-limited, warmer conditions. Lake eutrophication causes aquatic ecosystem changes that can be difficult to trace without a long-term perspective on water quality variables. This paper presents a study of a sediment core collected from Lake Montebello, which yielded such a long-term perspective of trophic state changes. We assumed that microfossil assemblages in the sediment had remained stable over time, as this lake is considered “pristine”. However, three distinctive lake periods over the last century were identified, with rapid environmental changes occurring ∼1960 and 2007–2010. Initially the lake was ultraoligotrophic (period A, 1930–1960), but it transitioned to oligo − mesotrophic conditions (period B, 1960 – 2010) and developed a dense bottom vegetation cover as erosion increased. Fire events during the 1998 “El Niño” and deforestation occurring between 2007 and 2010 increased lake turbidity and reduced light penetration, causing a decline in bottom vegetation cover and promoting diatom and testate amoebae species turnover. The landscape stabilized after ∼2010 a...