Dietmar Straile

• University of Konstanz

The link between compensatory dynamics and regime shifts is not well understood. We analyse a regime shift in phytoplankton in a large lake with respect to: (1) environmental forcing and (2) the type of dynamics (compensatory or synchronous) between phytoplankton groups. The regime shift in phytoplankton was related to gradual changes in nutrient l...

The model of the International Society of Limnology ( SIL ) Plankton Ecology working group (hereafter the PEG model) is a verbal model describing the patterns and driving factors of seasonal phytoplankton and zooplankton succession in oligotrophic and eutrophic lakes (Sommer et al ., 1986). Despite being a citation classic, tests of the PEG model w...

Many lake ecosystems that have been severely disturbed by eutrophication, have also experienced large human efforts to restore "natural" conditions. However, the trajectories and the extent of recovery of these lake ecosystems are still poorly understood. In many shallow lakes, recovery was often delayed and counter-clockwise hysteretic. Here, we s...

Climate warming alters the seasonal timing of biological events. This raises concerns that species‐specific responses to warming may de‐synchronize co‐evolved consumer‐resource phenologies, resulting in trophic mismatch and altered ecosystem dynamics. We explored the effects of warming on the synchrony of two events: the onset of the phytoplankton...

The PEG (Plankton Ecology Group) model predicts differences in phenology between eutrophic and oligotrophic lakes regarding the occurrence, timing and magnitude of annual chlorophyll maxima and minima. While these predictions have been tested between lakes, hardly any tests exist using long‐term data. We test these predictions using chlorophyll tim...

Biomass‐weighted mean traits of a community's constituent species are a useful tool to assess environmental filtering in community function in response to environmental change. We show that annually averaged phytoplankton community function, expressed by the community mean traits phosphate and light affinity, responded strongly and reversibly to lo...

1. Extreme meteorological events such as storms are increasing in frequency and intensity, but our knowledge of their impacts on aquatic ecosystems and emergent system properties is limited. Understanding the ecological impacts of storms on the dynamics of primary producers remains a challenge that needs to be addressed to assess the vulnerability...

Trophic change has induced substantial changes in biomass and composition of aquatic communities. Based on phytoplankton data from Lake Constance we demonstrate that community function is closely connected to community composition and responds strongly to trophic change. Community mean traits phosphate affinity and light affinity are tightly linked...

Changing nutrient concentrations and introduction of non-native species affect the energy and nutrient fluxes in aquatic ecosystems. As a response, invertebrate communities could be altered, and ‘novel’ trophic communities could develop. Lake Constance (Europe) experienced pronounced nutrient variation caused by cultural eutrophication (prior 1980s...

Prey communities in natural environments face a diverse array of predators with distinct hunting techniques. However, most studies have focused only on the interactions between a single prey species and one or more predators and typically only one of many induced defense traits, which limits our understanding of the broader effects of predators on...

Quagga mussels have expanded their range across the northern hemisphere in recent decades owing to their dispersal abilities, prolific reproduction rates, and broad ecological tolerances. Their remarkable capacity to filter particulates from the water column has had profound effects on inland aquatic ecosystems. In the North American Great Lakes, q...

Body size is a key functional trait that affects many physiological and ecological processes. Among ectotherms, body size patterns are strongly influenced by temperature variation (temperature-size rule). Consequently, climate change is likely to alter body size patterns affecting ecosystem function, particularly in size-structured aquatic communit...

In recent years, Lake Constance has experienced an invasion and domination of three-spined stickleback ( Gasterosteus aculeatus ) in the pelagic zone, which has coincided with a decline in the native whitefish ( Coregonus wartmanni ) population. Similar massive invasions of sticklebacks into pelagic zones have been recognized also in marine areas o...

Climate warming alters the seasonal timing of biological events. This raises concerns that species-specific responses to warming may de-synchronize co-evolved consumer-resource phenologies, resulting in trophic mismatch and altered ecosystem dynamics. Here we explore effects of warming on the temporal coherence of two key phenological events in lak...

Climate warming alters the seasonal timing of biological events. This raises concerns that species-specific responses to warming may de-synchronize co-evolved consumer-resource phenologies, resulting in trophic mismatch and altered ecosystem dynamics. Here we explore effects of warming on the temporal coherence of two key phenological events in lak...

Inducible morphological defences are crucial for understanding predator–prey interactions. Such defences have been mostly studied in a single‐predator context, ignoring the fact that prey organisms are often exposed to multiple predators. In deep peri‐Alpine European lakes, the keystone grazer Daphnia coexists with two cladoceran predators, Bythotr...

Invasion of non‐native species might alter food web structure and the strength of top‐down control within lake ecosystems. As top‐down control exerted by fish populations is often dominated by young of the year fish, the impact of new fish species might depend on the feeding rates of the juvenile fish. Here we provide comparative analyses of feedin...

Aims: This chapter covers main and recent findings in the study of zooplankton nutritional constraints. We will present detailed laboratory studies on the physiological needs of zooplankton regarding food quantity and single elements or biochemicals. In addition, we aim to summarize the findings on the degree and type of nutritional constraints exp...

Climate change and other anthropogenic stressors have led to long-term changes in the thermal structure, including surface temperatures, deepwater temperatures, and vertical thermal gradients, in many lakes around the world. Though many studies highlight warming of surface water temperatures in lakes worldwide, less is known about long-term trends...

Lake surfaces are warming worldwide, raising concerns about lake organism responses to thermal habitat changes. Species may cope with temperature increases by shifting their seasonality or their depth to track suitable thermal habitats, but these responses may be constrained by ecological interactions, life histories or limiting resources. Here we...

The intensity and frequency of storms are projected to increase in many regions of the world because of climate change. Storms can alter environmental conditions in many ecosystems. In lakes and reservoirs, storms can reduce epilimnetic temperatures from wind‐induced mixing with colder hypolimnetic waters, direct precipitation to the lake's surface...

Exploring the capability of organisms to cope with human-caused environmental change is crucial for assessing the risk of extinction and biodiversity loss. We study the consequences of changing nutrient pollution for the freshwater keystone grazer, Daphnia , in a large lake with a well-documented history of eutrophication and oligotrophication. Exp...

A key phenological event in the annual cycle of many pelagic ecosystems is the onset of the spring algal bloom (OAB). Descriptions of the factors controlling the OAB in temperate to polar lakes have been limited to isolated studies of single systems and conceptual models. Here we present a validated modelling approach that, for the first time, enab...

This contribution tells the history of the limnological institutes, which were founded at the shores of Lake Constance. The history starts in the late 19th century examining the scientific and personal background of two institutes, the “Anstalt für Bodenseeforschung” in Konstanz-Staad (no longer existing) and the “Institut für Seenforschung und See...

Globally, lake surface water temperatures have warmed rapidly relative to air temperature, but changes in deepwater temperatures and vertical thermal structure are still largely unknown. We have compiled the most comprehensive data set to date of long-term (1970-2009) summertime vertical temperature profiles in lakes across the world to examine tre...

Winter activities on ice are culturally important for many countries, yet they constitute a high safety risk depending upon the stability of the ice. Because consistently cold periods are required to form stable and thick ice, warmer winters could degrade ice conditions and increase the likelihood of falling through the ice. This study provides the...

1. The littoral zone of lakes is used as spawning, shelter, or feeding habitat for many fish species and hence is of key importance for overall lake functioning. Despite this, hardly any studies exist examining the long-term dynamics and response of the littoral fish community, composed mostly of juvenile fish, to environmental change. Here, we stu...

Large lakes of the world are habitats for diverse species, including endemic taxa, and are valuable resources that provide humanity with many ecosystem services. They are also sentinels of global and local change, and recent studies in limnology and paleolimnology have demonstrated disturbing evidence of their collective degradation in terms of dep...

In many regions across the globe, extreme weather events such as storms have increased in frequency, intensity, and duration due to climate change. Ecological theory predicts that such extreme events should have large impacts on ecosystem structure and function. High winds and precipitation associated with storms can affect lakes via short-term run...

Ammonia released during organic matter mineralization is converted during nitrification to nitrate. We followed spatiotemporal dynamics of the nitrifying microbial community in deep oligotrophic Lake Constance. Depth‐dependent decrease of total ammonium (0.01‐0.84 μM) indicated the hypolimnion as the major place of nitrification with 15N‐isotope di...

Cultural oligotrophication is expected to shift lake zooplankton to become dominated by calanoid copepods. Hence, understanding the influence of calanoids on the taxonomic and size structure of the lower plankton food web is crucial for predicting the effects of oligotrophication on energy fluxes in these systems. We studied the effect of an omnivo...

Freshwaters including adjacent floodplains, as well as coastal waters are among the global hotspots of biological diversity. They are also among the most threatened ecosystems on Earth, and yet receive much less attention than terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Not only does the dramatic decline in freshwater biodiversity affect all levels of biolo...

Abstract During past decades, many lakes underwent drastic human‐caused changes in trophic state with strong implications for population dynamics and food web processes. We investigated the influence of trophic state on nutrient allocation into Daphnia resting eggs. The production of resting eggs is an important survival strategy, allowing Daphnia...

People extensively use lakes and rivers covered by seasonal ice. Although ice cover duration has been declining over the past 150 years for Northern Hemisphere freshwaters, we know relatively little about how ice loss directly affects humans. Here, we synthesize the cultural ecosystem services (i.e., services that provide intangible or nonmaterial...

Living Water - Research Agenda on Biodiversity of Inland and Coastal Waters

Ice provides a range of ecosystem services—including fish harvest¹, cultural traditions², transportation³, recreation⁴ and regulation of the hydrological cycle⁵—to more than half of the world’s 117 million lakes. One of the earliest observed impacts of climatic warming has been the loss of freshwater ice⁶, with corresponding climatic and ecological...

Inherent differences between naturally-formed lakes and human-made reservoirs may play an important role in shaping zooplankton community structure. For example, because many reservoirs are created by impounding and managing lotic systems for specific human purposes, zooplankton communities may be affected by factors that are unique to reservoirs,...

Regression tree statistics for crustacean, total copepod, calanoid, and cladoceran density for all waterbodies, for just natural lakes, and for just reservoirs in the continental U.S. Reported for each regression analysis is each individual leaf group, N for each leaf, each leaf’s response variable mean ± SE, and the description for node splits for...

The variable importance of the focal environmental variables provided for all regression analyses. All refers to aggregated analyses with both natural lakes and reservoirs. Temp max = maximum waterbody temperature (°C), DO mean = mean water column dissolved oxygen concentration (mg L-1), Chlorophyll a = chlorophyll a concentration (μg L-1), and WRT...

Comparisons of a) crustacean zooplankton (copepod + cladoceran), b) total copepod (cyclopoid + calanoid), c) calanoid, and d) cladoceran, and e) crustacean zooplankton genera richness between natural lakes and reservoirs across the U.S. (TIF)

Locations of the regression analysis splits for calanoid zooplankton density across both natural lakes and reservoirs (N = 688). A refers to waterbodies that have pH ≤ 7.9; B refers to waterbodies with pH > 7.9 but ≤ 8.7; C refers to waterbodies with pH > 8.7 and water residence times > 0.338 years; D refers to waterbodies with pH > 8.7 and water r...

Pearson product-moment correlations of focal environmental variables included in the analyses. “NS” refers to relationships that are not significant and “.” refers to empty cells. The focal environmental variables included in our analyses were: Temp max = maximum waterbody temperature (°C), DO mean = mean water column dissolved oxygen concentration...

Locations of the regression analysis splits for cladoceran zooplankton density across both natural lakes and reservoirs (N = 688). A refers to waterbodies that have maximum temperatures > 27.5 °C; B refers to waterbodies with maximum temperature < 27.5 °C and pH < 8.38; C refers to waterbodies with maximum temperature < 27.5 °C, pH > 8.38, and wate...

Location of reservoirs with different primary purposes across the U.S. Primary purpose was obtained for all reservoirs with available data from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ National Inventory of Dams database. N > 20 for each of these categories. (TIF)

The present paper aims at reviewing general knowledge of large European perialpine lakes as provided by sediment studies, and at outlining the contribution, from several lines of evidence, of modern paleolimnology in both interpreting past lake ecological evolution and forecasting lake responses to future human impacts. A literature survey mainly b...

The aim of this review is to introduce and critically comment the main research topics considered in a selection of papers on the European large perialpine lakes (LPL) presented at the XXXIII congress of the International Society of Limnology in 2016. Besides highlighting ongoing research advancements in the LPL, the review provides a critical over...

Under ongoing climate change and increasing anthropogenic activity, which continuously challenge ecosystem resilience, an in-depth understanding of ecological processes is urgently needed. Lakes, as providers of numerous ecosystem services, face multiple stressors that threaten their functioning. Harmful cyanobacterial blooms are a persistent probl...

The shape of the productivity-richness relationship (PRR) for phytoplankton has been suggested to be unimodal, that is, the richness peaks at intermediate productivity levels. However, the mechanistic understanding for this pattern is still widely debated. In this study, we observed a unimodal PRR within 71 lakes along the Yangtze River encompassin...

Insight into how environmental change determines the production and distribution of cyanobacterial toxins is necessary for risk assessment. Management guidelines currently focus on hepatotoxins (microcystins). Increasing attention is given to other classes, such as neurotoxins (e.g., anatoxin-a) and cytotoxins (e.g., cylindrospermopsin) due to thei...

Trait selection and co-existence in phytoplankton communities in partially mixed water columns is investigated using trait based modelling. In the models employed, trait selection results from phytoplankton competition for two limiting resources, light and nutrients. The study employs spatially resolved models, in which the phytoplankton community...

Supporting information containing 6 parts. Appendix A in S1 File provides adetailed description of the aggregated trait-based model, Table A in S1 File lists model variables and parameters. Figure A in S1 File depicts the trade-off between the half saturation constants HN and HI. Figure B in S1 File shows different properties of the RM-simulated tr...

Under ongoing climate change and increasing anthropogenic activity, which continuously challenge ecosystem resilience, an in-depth understanding of ecological processes is urgently needed. Lakes, as providers of numerous ecosystem services, face multiple stressors that threaten their functioning. Harmful cyanobacterial blooms are a persistent probl...

The vertical distribution of chlorophyll in stratified lakes and reservoirs frequently exhibits a maximum peak deep in the water column, referred to as the deep chlorophyll maximum (DCM). DCMs are ecologically important hot spots of primary production and nutrient cycling, and their location can determine vertical habitat gradients for primary cons...

Cross-ecosystem fluxes can crucially influence the productivity of adjacent habitats. Emerging aquatic insects represent one important pathway through which freshwater-derived organic matter can enter terrestrial food webs. Aquatic insects may be of superior food quality for terrestrial consumers because they contain high concentrations of essentia...

Increased external nutrient loads of anthropogenic origin, especially those of phosphorus (P), were one of the major causes of eutrophication during the first half of the twentieth century in Europe. They led to deterioration of lake ecosystems, particularly including noxious blooms of (potentially toxic) cyanobacteria. From the 1970–1980s, strateg...

Die Autoren fassen den aktuellen Kenntnisstand zur Limnologie und Ökologie des Bodensees und seiner Belastungen zusammen. Die letzte solche Zusammenfassung war aus dem Jahr 1955 (Kiefer, 1955), vor mehr als 60 Jahren. Ausgehend von einer Übersicht über die limnologische Forschungsgeschichte werden das Einzugsgebiet, die geologischen, hydrographisch...

Despite evidence from a number of Earth systems that abrupt temporal changes known as regime shifts are important, their nature, scale and mechanisms remain poorly documented and understood. Applying principal component analysis, change-point analysis and a sequential t-test analysis of regime shifts to 72 time series, we confirm that the 1980s reg...

Figure S4. Replotted figure SPM 1a from IPCC Summary for Policy Makers (2013).

Figure S5. Effects of the El Chichón and Pinatubo eruptions on radiation, redrawn from Robock (2000).

Figure S1. Autocorrelograms (a) for observed and (b) for simulated time series.

Figure S3. Comparison of multiple STARS on real and artificial time series: shift strength.

Table S2. Supporting source, background and methodology citations.

Table S3. Additional information and notes on the time series presented in Fig. 2.

Table S5. Shift year of the time series from Fig. 2 included in the regions of Fig. 6. A compendium of all the supplementary figures and Tables 2‐5 with their legends plus additional references for Table S2.

Figure S2. Comparison of multiple STARS on real and artificial time series: shift years.

Table S1. Excel Database that includes all the annual values of the 72 analysed time series.

Table S4. Coordinates for six regions of tropical hurricanes/storms in Fig. 6.

In this first worldwide synthesis of in situ and satellite-derived lake data, we find that lake summer surface water temperatures rose rapidly (global mean = 0.34°C decade−1) between 1985 and 2009. Our analyses show that surface water warming rates are dependent on combinations of climate and local characteristics, rather than just lake location, l...

Despite evidence from a number of Earth systems that abrupt temporal changes known as regime shifts are important, their nature, scale and mechanisms remain poorly documented and understood. Applying principal component analysis, change-point analysis and a sequential t-test analysis of regime shifts to 72 time series, we confirm that the 1980s reg...

Climate warming has been shown to advance the phenology of species. Asynchronous changes in phenology between interacting species may disrupt feeding interactions (phenological mismatch) which could have tremendous consequences for ecosystem functioning. Long-term field observations have suggested asynchronous shifts in phenology with warming where...

Global environmental change has influenced lake surface temperatures, a key driver of ecosystem structure and function. Recent studies have suggested significant warming of water temperatures in individual lakes across many different regions around the world. However, the spatial and temporal coherence associated with the magnitude of these trends...

Global environmental change has influenced lake surface temperatures, a key driver of ecosystem structure and function. Recent studies have suggested significant warming of water temperatures in individual lakes across many different regions around the world. However, the spatial and temporal coherence associated with the magnitude of these trends...

Long‐term phytoplankton monitoring provides an important resource for studying the effects of environmental change on communities and testing ecological hypotheses. However, because of identification difficulties, maintaining consistency in the data over long periods is extremely difficult. It is usually assumed that consistency is improved when on...

Global environmental change has influenced lake surface temperatures, a key driver of ecosystem structure and function. Recent studies have suggested significant warming of water temperatures in individual lakes across many different regions around the world. However, the spatial and temporal coherence associated with the magnitude of these trends...

The aquatic herbivorous and capital-breeding moth Acentria ephemerella Denis and Schiffermüller, 1775, feeds on submerged pondweeds, Potamogeton spp., and is highly preyed upon by fishes in the littoral zone. We studied the spatiotemporal within-lake variability of length, sexual size dimorphism (SSD) and sex ratio of A. ephemerella pupae and of la...

Vegetative cell division in diatoms often results in a decreased cell size of one of the daughter cells, which during long-term cultivation may lead to a gradual decrease of the mean cell size of the culture. To restore the initial cell size, sexual reproduction is required, however, in many diatom cultures sexual reproduction does not occur. Such...

In contrast to the macro/mesozooplankton, microzooplankton has received much less attention in ecosystem models. In many modeling studies, microzooplankton has been either entirely neglected, or else, data were often not available for validation, or agreement between the observed and the simulated abundances was rather poor. In this study, we compa...

The role of positive interactions in structuring plant and animal communities is increasingly recognized, but the generality of current theoretical models has remained practically unexplored in animal communities. The stress gradient hypothesis predicts a linear increase in the intensity of facilitation as environmental conditions become increasing...

1. Long-term data have been suggested as resources for investigating environmental influences on biodiversity and, in turn, the role of biodiversity for ecosystem dynamics. However, scientists analysing biodiversity patterns in long-term data need to recognise that multidecadal time series are likely to suffer from inconsistencies in methodology, w...

Based on a 1D model considering phytoplankton and nutrients in a vertical water column, we investigate the consequences of temporal and spatial variations in turbulent mixing for phytoplankton production and biomass. We show that in seasonally mixed systems, the processes controlling phytoplankton production and the sensitivity of phytoplankton abu...

Lake stratification is to a large extent determined by regional climatic conditions. Changes in climate patterns like increasing air temperature or wind speed will lead to a shift in lake characteristics, thus changing the physical basis for live in the aquatic system. A vertical one-dimensional hydrodynamic model supported by a simple ice cover m...

Previous studies analysing the chemical composition of profundal sediments of Lake Constance suggest a overall large contribution of allochthonous material to total sedimentation but also a large spatial variability in the relative importance of allochthonous versus autochthonous sedimentation. Here we analyse sedimenting particulate organic matter...

QuestionWhat are the interacting effects of stress and disturbance on both competition and facilitation, and ultimately their impact on diversity and species ranges? LocationSimulated data. Method We extended the spatially explicit model of Xiao etal. (Oikos, 118, 2009, 1343) to consider how stress and disturbance - operating alone or together - af...

This study evaluates the nutritional importance of allochthonous matter supply for profundal macrozoobenthic communities. It determines chironomid and oligochaete abundances and carbon sources at two sampling sites with different allochthonous contributions in the deep oligotrophic waters of Lake Constance. Site AL, characterized by sedimenting org...

Environmental change strongly affects primary productivity of ecosystems via modifying bottom-up and top-down regulation of primary producers. Here we present a novel approach to quantify the relative importance of regulating factors in natural systems over various ti-we calculated daily effect sizes of major factors affecting phytoplankton growth...