Diatom-environmental relationships in 64 alkaline southeastern Ontario (Canada) lakes: a diatom-based model for water quality reconstructions

Lake eutrophication is a problem in many areas of Ontario, although the history of nutrient enrichment is poorly documented. The aim of this study was to construct a diatom-based transfer function to infer past phosphorus levels in Ontario lakes using paleolimnological analyses. The relationship between diatom assemblages and limnological conditions was explored from a survey of diatoms preserved in the surface sediments of 64 Southern Ontario lakes, spanning a total phosphorus gradient of 0.004 to 0.054 mg L^-1. Over 420 diatom taxa were identified, 98 of which were sufficiently common to be considered in statistical analyses. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) determined that pH, ammonium, aluminum, spring total phosphorus (TP), strontium, total nitrogen (TN), maximum depth (MaxZ), chlorophyll a (Chla) and mean depth were significant variables in explaining the variance in the diatom species data. The environmental optima of common diatom taxa for the limnologically important variables (TP, pH, TN, MaxZ, Chla) were calculated using weighted averaging (WA) regression and calibration techniques, and transfer functions were generated. The diatom inference model for spring TP provided a robust reconstructive relationship (r² = 0.637; RMSE = 0.007 mg L^-1; r² _boot = 0.466; RMSE_boot = 0.010 mg L^-1). Other variables, including pH (r² = 0.702; RMSE = 0.208; r² _boot = 0.485; RMSE_boot = 0.234), TN (r² = 0.574; RMSE = 0.0899 mg L^-1; r² _boot = 0.380; RMSE_boot = 0.127 mg L^-1) and MaxZ (r² = 0.554; RMSE = 1.05 m; r² _boot = 0.380; RMSE_boot = 1.490 m), were also strong, indicating that they may also be reconstructed from fossil diatom communities. This study shows that it is possible to reliably infer lakewater TP and other limnological variables in alkaline Southern Ontario lakes using the WA technique. This method has the potential to aid rehabilitation programs, as it can provide water quality managers with the means to estimate pre-enrichment phosphorus concentrations and an indication of the onset and development of nutrient enrichment in a lake.     

Liming placed in a long-term perspective: a paleolimnological study of 12 lakes in the Swedish liming program

Since the 1970s liming has been practised on a large scale in Sweden to mitigate acidification and several thousand lakes and streams are limed repeatedly. The Swedish monitoring program ISELAW (Integrated Studies of the Effects of Liming Acidified Waters) studies the long-term effects of liming. This paper summarizes the paleolimnological part of the program. Sediment cores from 12 lakes were analysed to study the development of the lakes from pre-industrial time until the present, and address questions about natural conditions and the effects of early human impact, acidification, and liming. Diatoms were used to reconstruct the pH history and to study shifts in species composition due to acidification and liming. Analyses of lead and spheroidal carbonaceous particles were applied for indirect dating and as indicators of the atmospheric deposition of pollutants associated with acid rain. Pollen analysis was performed in eight of the lakes to study the vegetation and agricultural history. The natural pH (prior to human disturbance) was between 5.3 and 6.5 in the eight lakes where the complete post-glacial sediment sequence was recovered. Pollen from anthropochores and apophytes indicated early agricultural land use in the vicinity of the lakes from 1000 to 2000 years ago, and pH increased with land use in six of these lakes. Five of the lakes have been acidified during recent decades, and in all 12 lakes some effects of liming were recorded in the diatom assemblage. The lakes show different responses to liming, including a return to a pre-acidification diatom composition or a shift to a state previously not recorded in the lake’s histories. This study accentuates the complexity of biological response to acidification and liming, and highlights the importance of historical perspectives to assess the current state of a lake’s ecosystem and to establish adequate restoration goals.     

Diatom-salinity relationships in 111 lakes from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia,Canada: the development of diatom-based models for paleosalinity reconstructions

Diatoms were identified and enumerated from the surface sediments of 111 lakes, 45 from the Kamloops region and 66 from the Cariboo/Chilcotin region, located on the southern Interior Plateau of British Columbia, Canada. This paper is an extension of another study which investigated the relationship of diatoms to salinity and ionic composition in 65 lakes from the Cariboo/Chilcotin region. The 111 lakes spanned a large gradient in salinity, ranging from fresh through hypersaline (late-summer salinity values ranged from 0.04 to 369 g l^–1), and included both carbonate- and sulphate-dominated lakes with sodium and magnesium as the dominant cations. The Kamloops region had more sulphate-dominated, hypersaline lakes and fewer carbonate-rich lakes than the Cariboo/Chilcotin region. Most lakes had higher salinities in the late-summer compared to the spring.Both salinity and brine-type were important variables that could explain the different diatom assemblages present in the lakes. The majority of diatom taxa had salinity optima in the freshwater to subsaline range (<3 g l^–1), and the taxa displayed a range of both narrow and broad tolerances along the salinity gradient. Weighted-averaging regression and calibration, and maximum likelihood techniques were used to develop salinity inference models from the diatom assemblages based on their relationship to the spring, late-summer and average lakewater salinity measurements. Simple weighted-averaging (WA) models generally produced the same or lower bootstrapped RMSEs of prediction than weighted-averaging with tolerance downweighting (WA(tol)) in the two regional and the combined datasets. Weighted averaging partial least squares (WA-PLS) showed little or no improvement in the predictive abilities of the datasets, as judged by the jackknifed RMSE of prediction. In all cases, the combined dataset of 102 lakes performed better than either of the smaller regional datasets, with relatively little difference between spring, average and late-summer salinity models. The maximum likelihood models gave lower apparent RMSEs of prediction in comparison to other methods; however, independent validation of this technique using methods such as bootstrapping were not undertaken because of the computer intensive nature of such analyses. These diatom-based salinity models are now available for reconstructing salinity and climatic trends from appropriately chosen closed-basin lakes in the Interior region of British Columbia.This is the second in a series of papers published in this issue on the paleolimnology of arid regions. These papers were presented at the Sixth International Palaeolimnology Symposium held 19–21 April, 1993 at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Dr A. R. Chivas served as guest editor for these papers.     

Development of a diatom-based specific conductivity model for the glacio-isostatic lakes of Truelove Lowland: implications for paleoconductivity and paleoenvironmental reconstructions in Devon Island lakes, N.W.T., Canada

Diatoms are identified and enumerated from the surface sediments of 100 lakes of Truelove Lowland, Devon Island, N.W.T., Canada. These lakes range from large oligotrophic lakes, to small tundra ponds, to coastal marine lagoons which are diverse in terms of ionic concentration and composition. The relationship between diatoms and 15 limnological variables is examined using Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA). Specific conductivity is identified as the most important variable influencing the distribution of diatoms in the Truelove lakes. A Weighted Averaging (WA) calibration model is developed to predict diatom-inferred specific conductivity. The reliability of the model is tested by evaluating the correlation between observed and diatom-inferred values and determining the error of prediction by bootstrapping. The applicability of the predictive conductivity equation is demonstrated by reconstructing the paleoconductivity history of Fish Lake.     

Impacts of settlement,damming, and hydromanagement in two boreal lakes: a comparative paleolimnological study

Namakan Lake, located in shared border waters in northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Ontario, was subjected to several anthropogenic impacts including logging, damming, water-level manipulations, and perhaps climate change. We used paleolimnology to determine how these stressors impacted Namakan Lake in comparison to a control lake (Lac La Croix) that was not subject to damming and hydromanagement. One core was retrieved from each lake for ²¹⁰Pb dating and analysis of loss-on-ignition and diatom composition. ²¹⁰Pb-derived chronologies from the cores indicated that sediment accumulation increased after logging and damming in Namakan Lake; Lac La Croix showed no significant change. Loss-on-ignition analysis also showed an increase in concentration and accumulation of inorganic material after damming in Namakan Lake; again, minimal changes were observed in Lac La Croix. Diatom communities in both lakes displayed community shifts at the peak of logging. Simultaneous, post-1970s diatom community changes may reflect regional climate warming. Taxonomic richness in Namakan Lake decreased sharply after damming and the peak of logging, and was followed by a slow recovery to taxonomic richness similar to that prior to damming. Ecological variability among post-damming diatom communities, however, was greater in Namakan Lake than in Lac La Croix. A diatom calibration set was used to reconstruct historical conductivity and total phosphorus (TP). Lac La Croix showed little historical change in conductivity and TP. In contrast, conductivity increased for several decades in Namakan Lake after damming, possibly in relation to several large fires and flooding. Total phosphorus also increased in Namakan Lake after damming, with a possible decrease in the last decade to pre-damming TP levels.     

Quantifying the effects of hydrological changes on long-term water quality trends in temperate reservoirs: insights from a multi-scale,paleolimnological study

Declining water quality in reservoirs is of growing concern in many regions, yet there is still little understanding of long-term water quality trends in these systems. Across the landscape, reservoirs have diverse origins, functions, and operational strategies. In temperate environments, winter water-level drawdown is a common operational practice in reservoirs but the long-term impacts of this hydrological modification has not been extensively studied. We paired a comparative, pre-dam-to-contemporary study (i.e. a top–bottom design) of 12 reservoirs with a detailed paleolimnological study of a focal lake to generate quantitative insights into the relative effect of hydrological changes vs. landscape and climatic drivers on water quality. The focal reservoir, Grand Lac Saint-François, is of relatively similar morphometry, geography, and limnology to our other sites, and has experienced annual winter water-level drawdown of?~?5 m since it was dammed approximately 100 years ago. Based on our top–bottom analysis, we did not find strong correlations between long-term changes in water quality (i.e. diatom-inferred TP estimates) and winter water-level drawdown amplitudes. Instead, reservoir morphometry and watershed characteristics (i.e. geography, maximum depth, and cropland areas) appeared to be stronger drivers of trends across the region. From the detailed paleolimnological analysis, we found that sedimentary pigments and DI-TP concentrations significantly increased over the last century based on Mann–Kendall trend analyses. Breakpoint analyses showed that changes in biological-proxy trends, as well as the sedimentology (i.e. lithology and accumulations rates), coincided with dam construction and the onset of water level regulation. However, given the high variability in metrics and the extent of water level monitoring records, we were unable to quantitatively associate the impacts of drawdown with water quality trends at Grand Lac Saint-François. Conversely, we did find that watershed nutrient surpluses from livestock farming, and warming temperatures were significant explanatory variables of water quality metrics.     

Holocene environmental history of thermokarst lakes on Richards Island, Northwest Territories, Canada: Theocamoebians as paleolimnological indicators

Richards Island, Northwest Territories, Canada, is characterized by thermokarst lakes which record Holocene limnological change. This study is the first report of thecamoebian assemblages and continuous annual lake water temperatures from these Arctic lakes. Ecological environments on Richards Island are influenced by a climatic gradient resulting from the contrasting influences of the cold Beaufort Sea to the north and the warm waters of the Mackenzie Delta to the east and west. This climatic gradient in turn influences modern thecamoebian assemblages, and is an indication of the complexity involved in interpreting past conditions from core material in this area.Population abundance and species diversity of thecamoebian assemblages on Richards Island are not significantly different from those reported from temperate and semi-tropical latitudes. However, certain assemblage characteristics, such as large and coarse agglutinated tests, dominance of assemblages by one or two species and low morphological variation are interpreted to be diagnostic of Arctic conditions. Thecamoebian assemblages in core material from the area indicate that the local paleolimnological conditions may have changed within the last 3 ka, and this is unrecorded in previously reported pollen data.Paleoenvironmental interpretations in a permafrost landscape have to take into account morphological instability of thermokarst lakes, which can be the cause of paleolimnological and consequently faunal change. In this area ecosystem development is clearly related to geomorphology and local climatic effects and is not exclusively controlled by regional climate change.     

Reconstruction of landscape paleohydrology using the sediment archives of three dystrophic lakes in northeastern Poland

Sediment layers of uniform age within lakes (isochrones) and their patterns reflect accumulation processes which can be correlated with hydrologic conditions in lake basins. The sedimentary archives in three small dystrophic lakes in northeastern Poland are described based on the correlation of local pollen assemblage zones in cores that were collected from the centers and margins of each lake. Past regional groundwater levels could be discerned from the shape of the isochrones, whether plane parallel or concave in configuration in relation to the lake basin shape. The concave configuration of the isochrones in the studied lakes shows that regional groundwater levels remained mostly high and stable throughout their history. The water levels in each lake during the Late Glacial and throughout the Holocene were different and no single, common water-level fluctuation pattern was identified in the three water bodies. The lack of such a finding suggests that the lakes are influenced dominantly by local hydrological factors.     

Multi-proxy paleolimnological assessment of biogeochemical versus food web controls on the trophic states of two shallow,mesotrophic lakes

The frequency of nuisance algal blooms has been increasing during the last two decades in the shallow, headwater East Pond (Smithfield, Maine, USA). Meanwhile, the hydrologically linked North Pond has not experienced an increase in algal blooms, despite similar morphometry and higher external nutrient loads. Possible explanations for this difference include stronger trophic cascade effects from planktivorous white perch (Morone americana) in East Pond as well as differences in phosphorus (P) release from the sediments of these two lakes. We conducted a paleolimnological investigation of these two lakes to assess whether sedimentary evidence supported trophic cascade effects based on cladoceran ephippia size, diatom fossils, and fossil pigments or biogeochemical controls based on potential sedimentary P release as the primary driver of these increased algal blooms in East Pond. At the time of white perch introduction (~1930–1950), ephippia size increases in East Pond, although no changes are observed in either diatom abundance or trends in the algal pigments. Instead, algal pigments increase in recent decades (~1980 to present) along with an increase in diatom taxa with higher TP optima These results suggest that predation by white perch is not resulting in top-down effects on algal abundance in East Pond, as predicted by the trophic cascade hypothesis. While the P content of sediments from both lakes is relatively equal, the releasable P in the top 10 cm of sediment in East Pond constitutes a greater percentage of the P extracted. Also, North Pond sediments exhibit a greater capacity to permanently bury P via the mechanisms of sorption to Al(OH)_3(s) and a slower mineralization of organic P compounds. The results of this investigation suggest that the ultimate driver of the recent algal blooms in East Pond is internal P release from the sediments instead of trophic cascade effects.     

Assembly and concept of a web-based GIS within the paleolimnological project CONTINENT (Lake Baikal,Russia)

Web-based Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are excellent tools within interdisciplinary and multi-national geoscience projects to exchange and visualize project data. The web-based GIS presented in this paper was designed for the paleolimnological project ‘High-resolution CONTINENTal paleoclimate record in Lake Baikal’ (CONTINENT) (Lake Baikal, Siberia, Russia) to allow the interactive handling of spatial data. The GIS database combines project data (core positions, sample positions, thematic maps) with auxiliary spatial data sets that were downloaded from freely available data sources on the world wide web. The reliability of the external data was evaluated and suitable new spatial datasets were processed according to the scientific questions of the project. GIS analysis of the data was used to assist studies on sediment provenance in Lake Baikal, or to help answer questions such as whether the visualization of present-day vegetation distribution and pollen distribution supports the conclusions derived from palynological analyses. The refined geodata are returned back to the scientific community by using online data publication portals. Data were made citeable by assigning persistent identifiers (DOI) and were published through the German National Library for Science and Technology (TIB Hannover, Hannover, Germany).     

Chaoborus (Diptera: Chaoboridae) mandibles—paleolimnological indicators of the historical status of fish populations in acid-sensitive lakes

Paleolimnological analyses of Chaoborus mandibles were used to assess the status of fish populations over the previous 150 to 300 years in five lakes from the Adirondack region of New York State. Windfall Pond (pH 6.5) has not acidified and currently has viable fish populations. Big Moose Lake (pH 5.0) has acidified in recent years, and the number of fish populations declined from 14 in the 1930's to seven in the early 1980's. The occurrence of only migratory Chaoborus (subgenus Sayomyia) in the cores indicated the long term presence of fish populations in Windfall Pond and Big Moose Lake. Brooktrout Lake (pH 5.0), Deep Lake (pH 4.7) and Upper Wallface Pond (pH 4.8) have all acidified in recent years, and all three are currently fishless. Chaoborus (Sayomyia) was present throughout the Brooktrout Lake core, but the entirely limnetic species, C. americanus, appeared in the topmost interval in the core. The appearance of C. americanus in the top of the core indicated a recent elimination of fish from Brooktrout Lake, probably during the 1970's. Elimination of fish by the 1940's was inferred for Deep Lake because C. americanus appeared above the 1930 level and replaced C. trivittatus as the dominant. Dominance of C. americanus throughout the Upper Wallface Pond core indicated that planktivorous fish were never present. These results strongly suggest that stratigraphic analyses of Chaoborus mandibles provide a useful assessment of the general status of historical fish populations in Adirondack lakes. The technique should be useful in other regions, as well as for applications other than those concerning lake acidification.This is the eleventh of a series of papers to be published by this journal which is a contribution of the Paleoecological Investigation of Recent Lake Acidification (PIRLA) project. Drs. D.F. Charles and D.R. Whitehead are guest editors for this series.     

A cladoceran-based paleolimnological assessment of the impact of forest harvesting on four lakes from the central interior of British Columbia, Canada

To investigate the impact of forest harvesting on lake ecosystems, six lakes (four impact, two reference) from central British Columbia, Canada were assessed using cladoceran remains preserved in the lake sediment cores. Two temporal resolutions were analyzed: a decadal scale for the past 70 years, and a high-resolution scale (2 year intervals for ten years before and after harvesting). Three lakes which experienced forestry activity in their watersheds in the early 1960s, and one lake which experienced forestry activityin the mid 1970s, showed subtle but statistically significant changes in cladoceran species composition following forest harvesting (analysis of similarity tests) at the decadal scale, whereas only two of these lakes showed significant changes at the higher resolution. These changes may be due to increased nutrient levels that might be associated with forest harvesting. The two reference lakes, which had not experienced any known large-scale anthropogenic watershed disturbances in the past century, showed no significant shifts in the cladoceran species assemblages at either temporal scale.     

A diatom-based reconstruction of drought intensity, duration, and frequency from Moon Lake, North Dakota: a sub-decadal record of the last 2300 years

Diatom assemblages preserved in sediment cores from closed-basin lakes can provide high-resolution records of past hydrologic and climatic conditions, including long-term patterns in the intensity, duration, and frequency of droughts. At Moon Lake, a closed-basin lake in eastern North Dakota, a comparison of diatom-inferred salinity and the precipitation-based Bhalme-Mooley Drought Index (BMDI) over the last 100 years was highly significant, suggesting that the diatom record contains a sensitive archive of past climatic conditions. A sub-decadal record of inferred salinity for the past 2300 years indicates that extreme droughts of greater intensity than those during the 1930s 'Dust Bowl' were more frequent prior to A.D. 1200. This high frequency of extreme droughts persisted for centuries and was most pronounced from A.D. 200–370, A.D. 700–850 and A.D. 1000–1200. A pronounced shift to generally wetter conditions with less severe droughts of shorter duration occured at A.D. 1200. This abrupt change coincided with the end of the 'Medieval Warm Period' (A.D. 1000–1200) and the onset of the 'Little Ice Age' (A.D. 1300–1850).     

Planktonic diatom communities in temperate South-Central Chilean lakes with a focus on Asterionella formosa and the genus Aulacoseira

Journal of Paleolimnology - Paleolimnological records from temperate South-Central Chilean lakes revealed a recent and marked increase in the relative abundances of the key-planktonic diatom...     

Experimental calibration of lake-sediment spectral reflectance to chlorophyll a concentrations: methodology and paleolimnological validation

Chlorophyll a preserved in lake sediments reflects, in part, past primary production. This study assesses the spectral properties of sedimentary chlorophyll a using visible-near infrared reflectance (VNIR) spectroscopy, with the objective of establishing a new, non-destructive paleolimnological proxy. Reflectance spectra were determined from a dilution series (n = 10) involving incremental additions of pulverized modern algae to a lake sediment matrix of low organic content. This enabled an assessment of the development of sediment reflectance spectra in relation to different sediment chlorophyll a concentrations, and subsequent regression of spectral features against measured concentrations of chlorophyll a and derivatives obtained by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The experiment demonstrates that ubiquitous troughs in sediment reflectance near 675 nm are attributable to chlorophyll a and derivative compounds. A significant correlation (r ² = 0.98, P < 0.01) was obtained between the area of the reflectance trough in the 650–700 nm interval and summed concentrations of chlorophyll a, all derivative isomers, and degradational pheopigments. A simple linear inference model derived from this experiment was applied to a down-core sequence of VNIR spectra from a productive prairie lake (Alberta, Canada), where it produced inferred sediment chlorophyll a concentrations in concordance with HPLC measurements. Although a larger training set is desirable to further refine the inference model, the analyses reported here demonstrate that reflectance spectroscopy provides a rapid, semi-quantitative method for assessing the chlorophyll a content of lake sediments.     

Response of the water use efficiency of natural vegetation to drought in Northeast China

Drought has become a problem that is universally faced by global terrestrial ecosystems. Northeast China is located in a region sensitive to global climate changes, and one of the main impacts of climate changes in Northeast China is manifested as drought in growing seasons. This study analyzes the spatio-temporal evolution law of the water use efficiency (WUE) of the main natural vegetation (i.e., cold-temperate coniferous forests, temperate pine-broad-leaved mixed forests, warm-temperate deciduous broad-leaved forests, and grasslands) in Northeast China based on public MODIS data products, including MCD12Q1, MOD15A2H, MOD16A2, and MOD17A3H, and meteorological data from 2002 to 2013. The influence of drought events on the WUE of different vegetation types and their response to drought events are also investigated. The study findings are as follows: (1) drought in Northeast China frequently occurs in the regions stretching from 114.55°E to 120.90°E, and the percentage of drought area among the forests is lower than that among the grasslands during these years; (2) the annual average WUE of the natural vegetation ranges from 0.82 to 1.08 C/kg^-1H₂O, and the WUE of forests (0.82 to 1.08 C/kg^-1H₂O) is universally higher than that of grasslands (0.84 to 0.99 C/kg^-1H₂O); (3) in 2008, the regions where the WUE in drought conditions is higher than that in normal water conditions account for 86.11% of the study area, and a significant linear positive correlation is found between the WUE in drought conditions and the WUE in normal water conditions, whereas the degree of drought does not influence the WUE of the natural vegetation in an obviously linear manner; and (4) the WUE for the cold-temperate coniferous forests and temperate pine-broad-leaved mixed forests with a high ET or low NPP is more likely to rise in drought conditions; the WUE for the grasslands with a low Evapotranspiration (ET), Net Primary Production (NPP), and Leaf Area Index (LAI) is more likely to rise in drought conditions; and the ET, NPP, and LAI have no significant influence on the WUE for the warm-temperate deciduous broad-leaved forests in drought conditions. This study contributes to improving the evaluation of the influence of drought on natural ecosystems.     

Effect of low count sums on quantitative environmental reconstructions: an example using subfossil chironomids

The concentrations of chironomid remains in lake sediments are very variable and, therefore, chironomid stratigraphies often include samples with a low number of counts. Thus, the effect of low count sums on reconstructed temperatures is an important issue when applying chironomidtemperature inference models. Using an existing data set, we simulated low count sums by randomly picking subsets of head capsules from surfacesediment samples with a high number of specimens. Subsequently, a chironomidtemperature inference model was used to assess how the inferred temperatures are affected by low counts. The simulations indicate that the variability of inferred temperatures increases progressively with decreasing count sums. At counts below 50 specimens, a further reduction in count sum can cause a disproportionate increase in the variation of inferred temperatures, whereas at higher count sums the inferences are more stable. Furthermore, low count samples may consistently infer too low or too high temperatures and, therefore, produce a systematic error in a reconstruction. Smoothing reconstructed temperatures downcore is proposed as a possible way to compensate for the high variability due to low count sums. By combining adjacent samples in a stratigraphy, to produce samples of a more reliable size, it is possible to assess if low counts cause a systematic error in inferred temperatures.     

Soil nutrients in relation to land use and landscape position in the semi-arid small catchment on the loess plateau in China

Characterizing spatial variability of soil nutrients in relation to site properties, including climate, land use, landscape position and other variables, is important for understanding how ecosystems work and assessing the effects of future land use change on soil nutrients. In order to assess the effects of land use and landscape position on soil nutrients consisting of soil organic matter (SOM), total N (TN), total P (TP), available N (AN) and available P (AP), soil samples were collected in August and October 1998 and July 1999 from three transects in a small catchment on the loess plateau, China. The three transects consisted of typical land use structure from the top to foot of hillslope in the study area: fallow land – cropland – woodland – orchard (T1), fallow land – shrub land – fallow land – cropland – woodland – orchard (T2) and intercropping land – woodland (T3). Significant differences among land uses were found for SOM, TN and AN. Woodland, shrub land and grassland had the higher levels for them compared to fallow land and cropland. Use of soil deterioration index showed that soils deteriorated moderately (−17·05%) under orchard and seriously (ranging from −29·91% to −20·32%) under fallow land, cropland and intercropping land, while soils had no deterioration (−0·74%) under shrubland and (−0·69%) grassland. This study indicated that the cultivated hilly lands must be abandoned before a critical minimum SOM of 0·492%. Soil nutrient responses to landscape positions were variable depending on transect and the location of land use types. The highest levels in SOM, TN and AN were observed at middle slope position on T1, while they occurred at foot slope position on T3. However, an increasing trend from upper slope to foot slope for five nutrients were found on T2.     

“亚喀斯特”概念与景观特征的初步探讨——以贵州为例

"亚喀斯特"作为贵州等地喀斯特生态环境的特殊组成部分,属典型的生态脆弱区,理清其概念内涵及景观特征是认识这一特殊环境的重要途径,本文拟对其概念内涵、景观特征进行初步探讨。分析认为,亚喀斯特是介于一般典型喀斯特与非喀斯特间的另一种地貌景观,三者在岩层特性、地貌发育、景观特征及生态环境效应若干方面均存在显著差异。构成亚喀斯特的岩性主要是不纯碳酸盐岩(如泥质白云岩、泥质灰岩)及碳酸盐岩与非碳酸盐岩组合的夹层,岩石含泥质成分高,洞穴分布极少,地下水资源模数较大;地貌以丘陵谷地、浅中丘、浅切割低中山为主,地形起伏较缓;成土母质丰富,土层较厚,宜农耕地较多,农用价值相对较大,但同等条件下土壤侵蚀量较高;植被生长茂盛、覆盖度高,生态环境相对较好。