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Nordicana
D31 / DOI :
10.5885/45520CE-0A48ADE0E2194290
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Dissolved organic carbon and related environmental data from ponds and lakes in the circumpolar North
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Maxime Wauthy* 1, 2, Milla Rautio 1, 2, 3, Kirsten S. Christoffersen 4, 5, Laura Forsström 6, Isabelle Laurion 2, 3, 7, Heather Mariash 8, Sari Peura 9, 10, Warwick F. Vincent 2, 11
1 Département des sciences fondamentales, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, Chicoutimi, Quebec, Canada
2 Centre d’études nordiques (CEN), Université Laval, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
3 Group for Interuniversity Research in Limnology and Aquatic Environment (GRIL), Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
4 Freshwater Biological Laboratory, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
5 Department of Arctic Biology, University Centre in Svalbard, Longyearbyen, Norway
6 Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
7 Centre Eau Terre Environnement, Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
8 Environment and Climate Change Canada, National Wildlife Research Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
9 Limnology, Department of Ecology and Genetics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
10 Molecular Epidemiology, Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
11 Département de biologie, Université Laval, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
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Corresponding author : *Auteur pour la correspondance / Corresponding author
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Abstract
Frozen tundra soils hold one of the Earth’s largest pools of organic carbon. With global warming, permafrost is thawing at an accelerated rate, promoting the formation of thermokarst ponds. These ponds have become increasingly abundant in high latitude areas, representing up to 90% of all lakes in some regions. They act as recipients of the huge amount of carbon stored in permafrost that, due to thawing, is transported to aquatic ecosystems. Originally transparent ponds with high oxygen production by benthic algae and general net autotrophy are receiving increasing amounts of terrestrial organic material from the changing watershed with consequences for the ecosystem metabolism. Increasing reliance to terrestrial carbon and nutrients stimulate bacteria production and respiration and decrease the light availability to benthic primary production, contributing to making an increasing number of circumpolar freshwaters an important source of greenhouse gases to atmosphere. The combined effect of increasing humic compounds from the watershed and the modifications in the pond metabolism contribute to changes in the composition of the carbon pool in water. The extent and rate of this change are however unknown although shallow ponds are the major freshwater ecosystem type in the circumpolar North and constitute an integral component in the carbon cycling at high latitudes. In order to investigate the influence of permafrost thaw to the stocks and composition of dissolved organic material (DOM) in circumpolar North freshwater systems, we used a suite of chemical (DOC), biological (chlorophyll a), optical (spectrophotometric indexes, EEMs, PARAFAC) and stable isotopic (d13C and d2H) indicators. During the summer periods from 2002 to 2016, we sampled a total of 253 ponds distributed in 14 circumpolar regions, for a total of 356 samples, a fraction of ponds being sampled more than one time during these 15 years. The regions span over a very wide geographic area, covering ~200° in longitude (from Alaska to Russia) and ~30° in latitude (from Subarctic to High Arctic), and resulting in a large range of thawing permafrost influence. We divided the ponds into three categories according to their exposure to permafrost thaw: (1) bedrock ponds, characterized by a bedrock catchment and not directly affected by thawing permafrost; (2) tundra, not impacted by permafrost thaw, but characterized by forest, shrub or desert tundra watersheds, depending on the region; and (3) thaw ponds, directly affected by thawing permafrost.
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Wauthy, M., Rautio, M., Christoffersen, K.S., Forsström, L., Laurion I., Mariash, H., Peura, S., Vincent, W.F. 2017. Dissolved organic carbon and related environmental data from ponds and lakes in the circumpolar North, v. 1.0 (2002-2016). Nordicana D31, doi: 10.5885/45520CE-0A48ADE0E2194290.
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Bouchard, F., Laurion, I., Préskienis, V., Fortier, D., Xu, X., Whiticar, M.J. 2015. Modern to millennium-old greenhouse gases emitted from ponds and lakes of the Eastern Canadian Arctic (Bylot Island, Nunavut). Biogeosciences. 12:7279-7298. DOI: 10.5194/bg-12-7279-2015.
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Laurion, I., Mladenov, N. 2013. Dissolved organic matter photolysis in Canadian arctic thaw ponds. Environmental Research Letters. 8:035026. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/035026.
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MacMillan, G.A., Girard, C., Chételat, J., Laurion, I., Amyot, M. 2015. High methylmercury in arctic and subarctic ponds is related to nutrient levels in the warming eastern Canadian Arctic. Environmental Science & Technology. 49:7743-7753. DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5b00763.
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Rautio, M., Dufresne, F., Laurion, I., Bonilla, S., Vincent, W.F., Christoffersen, K. 2011. Shallow freshwater ecosystems of the circumpolar Arctic. Ecoscience 18: 204-22 DOI: 10.2980/18-3-3463.
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Rautio, M., Vincent, W.F. 2007. Isotopic analysis of the sources of organic carbon for zooplankton in shallow subarctic and arctic waters. Ecography. 30:77-87. DOI: 10.1111/j.0906-7590.2007.04462.x.
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Roiha, T., Laurion, I., Rautio, M. 2015. Carbon dynamics in highly heterotrophic subarctic thaw ponds. Biogeosciences. 12:7223-7237. DOI: 10.5194/bg-12-7223-2015.
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Roiha, T., Peura, S., Cusson, M., Rautio, M. 2016. Allochthonous carbon is a major regulator to bacterial growth and community composition in subarctic freshwaters. Sci Rep. 6:34456. DOI: 10.1038/srep34456.
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Roiha, T., Tiirola, M., Cazzanelli, M., Rautio, M. 2012. Carbon quantity defines productivity while its quality defines community composition of bacterioplankton in subarctic ponds. Aquatic Sciences. 74:513-525. DOI: 10.1007/s00027-011-0244-1.
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Rossi, P.G., Laurion, I., Lovejoy, C. 2013. Distribution and identity of Bacteria in subarctic permafrost thaw ponds. Aquatic Microbial Ecology. 69:231-245. DOI: 10.3354/ame01634.
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Wauthy, M., Rautio, M., Christoffersen, K.S., Forsström, L., Laurion I., Mariash, H., Vincent, W.F. 2017. Increasing dominance of terrigenous organic matter in circumpolar freshwaters due to permafrost thaw. Submitted to L&O Letters. |
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We are grateful to the numerous students and technicians who contributed to collecting and analyzing samples for this project. The core funding was provided by the Canada Research Chairs Program and the Centre for Northern Studies (CEN). Funding was also afforded by Academy of Finland, ArcticNet, Arctic Goose Joint Venture, the Danish DANCEA program, the Fonds de Recherche du Québec-Nature et Technologies, the International Polar Year, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Polar Continental Shelf Program, with logistic and financial support from the Canadian High Arctic Research Station, the CEN research station network, the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station and the Zackenberg Research Station. The PhD grant of Maxime Wauthy was also partly supported by the Merit Scholarship Program for Foreign Students from the Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement Supérieur du Québec.
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Site |
Latitude |
Longitude |
Altitude (m) |
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Kilpisjärvi
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69.0333333 |
20.833333333333 |
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| More info
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Seida
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67.05 |
62.933333333333 |
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| More info
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Toolik
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68.6333333 |
-149.6 |
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| More info
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McKenzie Delta
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69.7 |
-134.46667 |
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Cambridge Bay
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69.1166667 |
-105.01666666667 |
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Resolute Bay
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74.6833333 |
-94.816666666667 |
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Coral Harbour
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64 |
-82.083333333333 |
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Bylot Island
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73.15 |
-79.983333333333 |
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KW
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55.2833333 |
-77.733333333333 |
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SAS
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55.2166667 |
-77.683333333333 |
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KWK
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55.3333333 |
-77.5 |
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Tasiapik
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56.55 |
-76.466666666667 |
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BGR
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56.6166667 |
-76.216666666667 |
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Ward Hunt
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83.0666667 |
-74.166666666667 |
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Hazen
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81.8333333 |
-70.416666666667 |
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Kangerlussuaq
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67 |
-50.666666666667 |
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Zackenberg
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74.5 |
-20.666666666667 |
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