Multiple interacting environmental drivers reduce the impact of solar UVR on primary productivity in Mediterranean lakes
Metadata
Show full item recordAuthor
Cabrerizo, Marco J.; Walter Helbling, E.; Villafañe, Virginia E.; Medina Sánchez, Juan Manuel; Carrillo Lechuga, PresentaciónEditorial
Nature Research
Date
2020-11-13Referencia bibliográfica
Cabrerizo, M. J., Helbling, E. W., Villafañe, V. E., Medina-Sánchez, J. M., & Carrillo, P. (2020). Multiple interacting environmental drivers reduce the impact of solar UVR on primary productivity in Mediterranean lakes. Scientific reports, 10(1), 1-11. [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-76237-5]
Sponsorship
Ministerio de Economía y Competividad (MINECO); European Union (EU) MICROSENSCGL2011-23681 METAS-CGL2015-67682-R; Medio Ambiente, Rural, y Marino PN2009/067; Junta de Andalucía CVI-02598 P09-RNM-5376; Fundación Playa Unión (Argentina); Juan de la Cierva-Formacion from the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades FJCI2017-32318; Postdoctoral contract "Contrato Puente" from Plan Propio (FP7/2017) of the University of Granada; METAS projectAbstract
Increases in rainfall, continental runoff, and atmospheric dust deposition are reducing water
transparency in lakes worldwide (i.e. higher attenuation Kd). Also, ongoing alterations in multiple
environmental drivers due to global change are unpredictably impacting phytoplankton responses
and lakes functioning. Although both issues demand urgent research, it remains untested how the
interplay between Kd and multiple interacting drivers affect primary productivity (
Pc). We manipulated
four environmental drivers in an in situ experiment—quality of solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR),
nutrient concentration (Nut), CO2
partial pressure (
CO2), and light regime (Mix)—to determine how
the Pc
of nine freshwater phytoplankton communities, found along a Kd gradient in Mediterranean
ecosystems, changed as the number of interacting drivers increased. Our findings indicated that UVR
was the dominant driver, its effect being between 3–60 times stronger, on average, than that of any
other driver tested. Also, UVR had the largest difference in driver magnitude of all the treatments
tested. A future UVR × CO2 × Mix × Nut scenario exerted a more inhibitory effect on Pc
as the water
column became darker. However, the magnitude of this synergistic effect was 40–60% lower than that
exerted by double and triple interactions and by UVR acting independently. These results illustrate
that although future global-change conditions could reduce Pc
in Mediterranean lakes, multiple
interacting drivers can temper the impact of a severely detrimental driver (i.e. UVR), particularly as the
water column darkens.