Wildfire smoke often covers areas larger than the burned area, yet the impacts of smoke on nearby aquatic ecosystems are understudied. In the summer of 2018, wildfire smoke covered Castle Lake (California, USA) for 55 days. We quantified the influence of smoke on the lake by comparing the physics, chemistry, productivity, and animal ecology in the prior four years (2014–2017) to the smoke year (2018). Smoke reduced incident ultraviolet-B (UV-B) radiation by 31% and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) by 11%. Similarly, underwater UV-B and PAR decreased by 65 and 44%, respectively, and lake heat content decreased by 7%. While the nutrient limitation of primary production did not change, shallow production in the offshore habitat increased by 109%, likely due to a release from photoinhibition. In contrast, deep-water, primary production decreased and the deep-water peak in chlorophyll
Some biological invasions can result in algae blooms in the nearshore of clear lakes. We studied if an invasive crayfish (
- Award ID(s):
- 1939502
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10411037
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer Science + Business Media
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Ecosystems
- Volume:
- 26
- Issue:
- 7
- ISSN:
- 1432-9840
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 1489-1503
- Size(s):
- p. 1489-1503
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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