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Epiphytic diatoms as flood indicators

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Abstract

The hydroecology of floodplain lakes is strongly regulated by flood events. The threat of climate warming and increasing human activities requires development of scientific methods to quantify changes in the frequency of short-lived flood events, because they remain difficult to identify using conventional paleolimnological and monitoring approaches. We developed an approach to detect floods in sediment records by comparing the abundance and composition of epiphytic diatom communities in flooded and non-flooded ponds of the Peace-Athabasca Delta (PAD), Canada, that grew on submerged macrophytes (Potamogeton zosteriformis, P. perfoliatus) and an artificial substrate (polypropylene sheets) during the open-water season of 2005. Analysis of similarity tests showed that epiphytic diatom community composition differs significantly between flooded and non-flooded ponds. After accounting for the “pond effect,” paired comparisons of the three substrates determined that variation in community composition between the artificial substrate and macrophytes was similar to that between the macrophyte taxa. Similarity percentage analysis identified diatom taxa that discriminate between flooded and non-flooded ponds. The relative abundance of ‘strong flood indicator taxa’ was used to construct an event-scale flood record spanning the past 180 years using analyses of sedimentary diatom assemblages from a closed-drainage pond (PAD 5). Results were verified by close agreement with an independent paleoflood record from a nearby flood-prone oxbow pond (PAD 54) and historical records. Comparison of epiphytic diatoms in flooded and non-flooded lakes in this study provides a promising approach to detect changes in flood frequency, and may have applications for reconstructing other pulse-type disturbances such as hurricanes and pollutant spills.

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Acknowledgments

Corina McDonald, Robert Grandjambe, Dorte Koster and Yi Yi assisted with the fieldwork. We thank Tammy Karst-Riddoch for training JW in diatom taxonomy and for providing data on the chronology and diatom percent abundances of the PAD 5 sediment core. We thank Mike Sokal and other members of our research group for helpful discussions that improved this paper. We thank the staff of Wood Buffalo National Park who provided logistical support for fieldwork. This study was funded by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Polar Continental Shelf Project, and the Northern Scientific Training Program of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. The paper benefited from helpful suggestions by two anonymous reviewers and Mark Brenner.

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  1. Department of Biology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave. W., Waterloo, ON, N2G 3L1, Canada

    Johan A. Wiklund, Natalie Bozinovski & Roland I. Hall

  2. Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Ave. W., Waterloo, ON, N2L 3C5, Canada

    Brent B. Wolfe

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  1. Johan A. Wiklund
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Correspondence to Johan A. Wiklund.

Appendix 1

Appendix 1

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Table 5 Chemical and physical characteristics of water in the study ponds from the Peace-Athabasca Delta (2005 data)
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Wiklund, J.A., Bozinovski, N., Hall, R.I. et al. Epiphytic diatoms as flood indicators. J Paleolimnol 44, 25–42 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-009-9383-y

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