D31 10.5885/45520CE-0A48ADE0E2194290 Under review

Dissolved organic carbon and related environmental data from ponds and lakes in the circumpolar North

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

^*Auteur pour la correspondance / Corresponding author

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.

Data citation

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. Nordicana D31, doi: 10.5885/45520CE-0A48ADE0E2194290.

Location map

Key references

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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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

Acknowledgements

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.

Version history

Version 1.0 (2002–2016)

Updated September 11, 2017

You can request an older version by contacting nordicana@cen.ulaval.ca

Measurement sites

Site	Latitude	Longitude
Kilpisjärvi	69.0333333	20.833333333333	More info
Seida	67.05	62.933333333333	More info
Toolik	68.6333333	-149.6	More info
McKenzie Delta	69.7	-134.46667	More info
Cambridge Bay	69.1166667	-105.01666666667	More info
Resolute Bay	74.6833333	-94.816666666667	More info
Coral Harbour	64	-82.083333333333	More info
Bylot Island	73.15	-79.983333333333	More info
KW	55.2833333	-77.733333333333	More info
SAS	55.2166667	-77.683333333333	More info
KWK	55.3333333	-77.5	More info
Tasiapik	56.55	-76.466666666667	More info
BGR	56.6166667	-76.216666666667	More info
Ward Hunt	83.0666667	-74.166666666667	More info
Hazen	81.8333333	-70.416666666667	More info
Kangerlussuaq	67	-50.666666666667	More info
Zackenberg	74.5	-20.666666666667	More info

Supplementary material

Download

Data available for download are in ZIP format. Please properly cite the data when using it.

CDOM_Database Get file

File: ds_000579190.zip Size: 58 B

Sites

Toolik McKenzie Delta Cambridge Bay Resolute Bay Coral Harbour Bylot Island KW SAS KWK Tasiapik BGR Ward Hunt Hazen Kangerlussuaq Zackenberg Kilpisjärvi Seida

Data

Pelagic chlorophyll a concentration (Chla) 07/2002 – 09/2016

Spectral slope for the interval 279-299 nm 07/2002 – 09/2016

pH 07/2002 – 09/2016

Total dissolved iron concentration 07/2002 – 09/2016

Total phosphorus concentration 07/2002 – 09/2016

Total nitrogen concentration 07/2002 – 09/2016

Dissolved organic carbon concentration (DOC) 07/2002 – 09/2016

Cuvette size 07/2002 – 09/2016

Specific ultraviolet absorbance at 254 nm 07/2002 – 09/2016

Absorption coefficient at 320 nm 07/2002 – 09/2016

Absorption coefficient at 440 nm 07/2002 – 09/2016

Slope ratio 07/2002 – 09/2016

Fluorescence index 07/2002 – 09/2016

Maximum fluorescence of the component C1 07/2002 – 09/2016

Maximum fluorescence of the component C2 07/2002 – 09/2016

Maximum fluorescence of the component C3 07/2002 – 09/2016

Maximum fluorescence of the component C4 07/2002 – 09/2016

Maximum fluorescence of the component C5 07/2002 – 09/2016

Sum of the maximum fluorescence 07/2002 – 09/2016

Relative abundance of the component C1 07/2002 – 09/2016

Relative abundance of the component C2 07/2002 – 09/2016

Relative abundance of the component C3 07/2002 – 09/2016

Relative abundance of the component C4 07/2002 – 09/2016

Relative abundance of the component C5 07/2002 – 09/2016

Sum of the relative abundance 07/2002 – 09/2016

Spectro_Scans_Raw_800-0.4-250.4 Get file

File: ds_000579195.zip Size: 572 B

Sites

Bylot Island KWK KW SAS BGR

Data

Wavelength 07/2006 – 08/2009

Absorbance 07/2006 – 08/2009

Spectro_Scans_Raw_800-1-250 Get file

File: ds_000579199.zip Size: 569 B

Sites

KW SAS Cambridge Bay Coral Harbour Kangerlussuaq Zackenberg Seida Kilpisjärvi Bylot Island Toolik McKenzie Delta Ward Hunt Hazen Tasiapik

Data

Wavelength 07/2003 – 09/2016

Absorbance 07/2003 – 09/2016

Spectro_Scans_Raw_800-2-250 Get file

File: ds_000579203.zip Size: 16 B

Sites

Resolute Bay KW

Data

Wavelength 07/2002 – 08/2002

Absorbance 07/2002 – 08/2002

SIA_Data Get file

File: ds_000579207.zip Size: 6 B

Sites

KW SAS

Data

d13C Mean 08/2014 – 08/2014

d13C Standard deviation 08/2014 – 08/2014

d2H Mean 08/2014 – 08/2014

d2H Standard deviation 08/2014 – 08/2014