Chironomid-inferred environmental change over the past 1400 years in the shallow,eutrophic Taibai Lake (south-east China): Separating impacts of climate and human activity

Abstract

A sediment core from Taibai Lake, a shallow and eutrophic lake (SE China), was analysed for chironomids to track environmental changes in the lake. Nutrient dynamics over the past 1400 years were traced based on subfossil records and a regional chironomid-inferred total phosphorus (CI-TP) transfer function. Between ad 600 and 1370, the coexistence of several macrophyte-related taxa such as Dicrotendipes, Paratanytarsus and Endochironomus reflected a clear-water state with flourishing plants, and total phosphorus (TP) reconstructions ranged from 40 to 60 µg/L. For the time span from ad 1370 to 1650, the prevalence of Paratanytarsus penicillatus-type indicated a slight decline of TP to lower than 50 µg/L, but CI-TP increased to previous levels between ad 1650 and 1940. Since the 1950s, Chironomus plumosus-type dominated the chironomid community, which illustrated that the lake suffered from high nutrient loadings and CI-TP increased from 80 to 140 µg/L. The results suggest that 50–60 µg/L of TP concentration is the reference condition for Taibai Lake, and ~80–110 µg/L might be considered as the nutrient threshold range between the plant-dominated and algal-dominated status. Variance partitioning analysis (VPA) was used to determine the relative influence of climate and human factors on the lake ecosystem. The analyses revealed that long-term climate change appeared to be the main determinant regulating the chironomid assemblages; however, the impact of human activities on the aquatic ecosystem prevailed over that of climate factors since the 1950s. This study improves our understanding of complex trajectories of aquatic ecosystem development at centennial to millennial timescales, which are influenced by both anthropogenic and climatic factors in a densely populated region. The main finding also provides reference for sustainable management in this lake and other analogous floodplain lakes.