• Information Technology
  • Human Resources
  • Careers
  • Giving
  • Library
  • Bookstore
  • Active Living
  • Continuing Education
  • Go Dinos
  • UCalgary Maps
  • UCalgary Directory
  • Academic Calendar
My UCalgary
Webmail
D2L
ARCHIBUS
IRISS
  • Faculty of Arts
  • Cumming School of Medicine
  • Faculty of Environmental Design
  • Faculty of Graduate Studies
  • Haskayne School of Business
  • Faculty of Kinesiology
  • Faculty of Law
  • Faculty of Nursing
  • Faculty of Nursing (Qatar)
  • Schulich School of Engineering
  • Faculty of Science
  • Faculty of Social Work
  • Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
  • Werklund School of Education
  • Information TechnologiesIT
  • Human ResourcesHR
  • Careers
  • Giving
  • Library
  • Bookstore
  • Active Living
  • Continuing Education
  • Go Dinos
  • UCalgary Maps
  • UCalgary Directory
  • Academic Calendar
  • Libraries and Cultural Resources
View Item 
  •   PRISM Home
  • Graduate Studies
  • The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations
  • View Item
  •   PRISM Home
  • Graduate Studies
  • The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Trends and drivers of water clarity in shallow, prairie lakes of southern Alberta

Thumbnail
View
ucalgary_2012_heather_maheux.pdf
Download
ucalgary_2012_heather_maheux.pdf (543.4Kb)
Advisor
Jackson, Leland
Author
Maheux, Heather Marie
Accessioned
2012-10-03T21:29:05Z
Available
2012-11-13T08:01:48Z
Issued
2012-10-03
Submitted
2012
Other
shallow lakes
regime shift
paleolimnology
Subject
Ecology
Type
Thesis
Metadata
Show full item record

Abstract
This research examined water clarity in shallow, prairie lakes of southern Alberta. A combination of water column analyses from 20 lakes and paleolimnological analyses from ten of them were used to examine how water clarity has changed since 1850 and to identify possible explanations for the observed changes. Pigment data from sediment cores showed the lakes experienced accelerated eutrophication since 1850, but that the onset was not synchronous across lakes. The lakes showed evidence that regime shifts between clear and turbid lake regimes since 1850 were possible. Evidence was based based on paleolimnolgical analyses using pigment data and additional sediment core proxies (e.g. fossils, isotopes). Water quality data from 20 lakes did not provide additional support for the existence of alternate regimes based on multimodal distribution between regimes or dual relationships between nutrients and water clarity. Salinity and major ion composition may help explain why some lakes did not provide additional support for the existence of alternate clear and turbid regimes. In most lakes, turbidity was dominated by inorganic matter, rather than phytoplankton, and this was more prevalent in the more saline lakes. High proportions of heterocystous cyanobacteria from four of the 20 shallow lakes provided some evidence for nitrogen limitation in the lakes. It is possible that additional lakes were also nutrient limited. As a result, models that use nutrient-chlorophyll relationships developed in non-saline lakes do not accurately capture turbidity dynamics in the saline, shallow lakes on southern Alberta’s prairie.
Corporate
University of Calgary
Faculty
Graduate Studies
Doi
http://dx.doi.org/10.5072/PRISM/28525
Uri
http://hdl.handle.net/11023/290
Collections
  • The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Browse

All of PRISMCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

My Account

LoginRegister

Statistics

Most Popular ItemsStatistics by CountryMost Popular Authors

  • Email
  • SMS
  • 403.220.8895
  • Live Chat

Energize: The Campaign for Eyes High

Privacy Policy
Website feedback

University of Calgary
2500 University Drive NW
Calgary, AB T2N 1N4
CANADA

Copyright © 2017