Influência das mudanças climáticas globais na estrutura e dinâmica da comunidade fitoplanctônica de um lago raso subtropical: uma abordagem experimental

Abstract

Climate change is considered one of the greatest threats to aquatic ecosystems around the globe. Among the planned changes including the dynamics of phytoplankton, the growth of cyanobacteria are among the most cited. The objective of this study was to evaluate the isolated and combined effects of increased temperature and nutrients on phytoplankton community structure in a large subtropical shallow lake. The study was conducted in microcosms to simulate possible scenarios of climate change alone and in combination with nutrient enrichment (N and P), from samples of winter and summer. The isolated and or combined influence increase of temperature and nutrients promoted non significant changes in total biomass, species richness and diversity of Lake Mangueira. Biomass of Bacillariophyceae was significantly influenced by the combined effect of factors, while the significant increase in biomass of Cyanobacteria occurred only under the isolated effects of heating and enrichment. Descriptors species composition in both periods was not altered. This indicated that the temperature increases and the increase in nutrient concentrations were not sufficient to promote changes in the phytoplankton community structure in Lake Mangueira, and the turnover of bloom-forming species was not observed, as expected. The resilience of aquatic ecosystems depending on the extent of climate change disturbance might contribute to understand the responses of these environments on the numerous predictions and expectations.