Global ecosystem typology

Alternative site for the Global ecosystem typology with additional information for ecosystem profiles and indicative maps.

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F2.2 Small permanent freshwater lakes

Biome: F2. Lakes biome

Contributors:
(texts)

With a surface area of up to 100 km2, the diversity of small permanent lakes, ponds and pools depends on their size, depth and connectivity. Littoral vegetation and benthic energy pathways are critical to productivity and food web complexity. Deep lakes have plankton, supporting fish, birds and frogs, in different habitats of the lake. Shallow lakes are often more productive, providing breeding habitat for birds, frogs and reptiles, but limited buffering against nutrient inputs may result in regime shifts between alternative stable states dominated either by large aquatic plants or phytoplankton.

Key Features

Small permanent freshwater lakes or ponds with niche diversity strongly related to size and depth, and resource subsidies from catchments. Littoral zones and benthic macrophytes are important contributors to productivity.

Overview of distribution

Predominantly in humid temperate and tropical regions.

Profile versions

  • v1.0 (2020-01-20): RT Kingsford; RC Mac Nally; LJ Jackson; F Essl; DA Keith
  • v2.0 (2020-06-01): RT Kingsford; B Robson; R MacNally; L Jackson; F Essl; M Kelly-Quinn; K Irvine; S Bertilsson; DA Keith
  • v2.01 ():
  • v2.1 (2022-04-06): RT Kingsford; B Robson; R MacNally; L Jackson; F Essl; M Kelly-Quinn; K Irvine; S Bertilsson; DA Keith Full profile available at official site

Main references

Selected references for this functional group:

  • Schindler DE, Scheuerell MD (2002) Habitat coupling in lake ecosystems Oikos 98:177-189

  • Jeppesen E, Jensen JP, Søndergaard M, Lauridsen T, Pedersen LJ, Jensen L (1997) Top-down control in freshwater lakes: the role of nutrient state, submerged macrophytes and water depth Shallow Lakes ‘95 pp.151–164. Developments in Hydrobiology, vol 119. Springer, Dordrecht DOI:10.1007/978-94-011-5648-6_17

Diagrammatic assembly model

Diagrammatic assembly model of F2.2 Small permanent freshwater lakes. See general notes on diagrams. Open image full size.

Maps

Maps are indicative of global distribution patterns are not intended to represent fine-scale patterns. The maps show areas of the world containing major (coloured red) or minor occurrences (coloured yellow) of each ecosystem functional group. See general notes on maps.

There are 2 alternative versions of the indicative map for this functional group, please compare description and sources below.

F2.2.IM.mix_v2.0

Datasets

  • GSW-1.1
  • HydroLAKES-1.0
  • FEOW-2008

Map references

  • Pekel JF, Cottam A, Gorelick N, Belward AS (2016) High-resolution mapping of global surface water and its long-term changes Nature 540, 418-422 DOI:10.1038/nature20584

  • Messager, M.L., Lehner, B., Grill, G., Nedeva, I., Schmitt, O. (2016) Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes using a geo-statistical approach Nature Communications 13603 DOI:10.1038/ncomms13603

  • Abell R, Thieme ML, Revenga C, Bryer M, Kottelat M, Bogutskaya N, Coad B, Mandrak N, Contreras Balderas S, Bussing W, Stiassny MLJ, Skelton P, Allen GR, Unmack P, Naseka A, Ng R, Sindorf N, Robertson J, Armijo E, Higgins JV, Heibel TJ, Wikramanayake E, Olson D, López HL, Reis RE, Lundberg JG, Sabaj Pérez MH, Petry P (2008) Freshwater ecoregions of the world: A new map of biogeographic units for freshwater biodiversity conservation, BioScience 58: 403–414. DOI:10.1641/B580507

F2.2.web.mix_v2.0

Freshwater ecoregions (Abell et al. 2008) were identified as containing occurrences of these functional groups if: i) their descriptions mentioned features consistent with those identified in the profile of the Ecosystem Functional Group; and ii) if their location was consistent with the ecological drivers described in the profile. Within those areas, locations of small lakes (<100km2), excluding artificial lakes (inclusion on types 1 and 3 only), were taken from the HydroLAKES database (Messager et al. 2016) and combined with global estimates of surface water phenology (classes 1, 2 and 7 from Pekel et al. 2016), occurrences were aggregated to 10 minutes spatial resolution. Open image full size.

Datasets

  • GSW-1.1
  • HydroLAKES-1.0
  • FEOW-2008

Map references

  • Pekel JF, Cottam A, Gorelick N, Belward AS (2016) High-resolution mapping of global surface water and its long-term changes Nature 540, 418-422 DOI:10.1038/nature20584

  • Messager, M.L., Lehner, B., Grill, G., Nedeva, I., Schmitt, O. (2016) Estimating the volume and age of water stored in global lakes using a geo-statistical approach Nature Communications 13603 DOI:10.1038/ncomms13603

  • Abell R, Thieme ML, Revenga C, Bryer M, Kottelat M, Bogutskaya N, Coad B, Mandrak N, Contreras Balderas S, Bussing W, Stiassny MLJ, Skelton P, Allen GR, Unmack P, Naseka A, Ng R, Sindorf N, Robertson J, Armijo E, Higgins JV, Heibel TJ, Wikramanayake E, Olson D, López HL, Reis RE, Lundberg JG, Sabaj Pérez MH, Petry P (2008) Freshwater ecoregions of the world: A new map of biogeographic units for freshwater biodiversity conservation, BioScience 58: 403–414. DOI:10.1641/B580507

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