Plants or bacteria? 130 years of mixed imprints in Lake Baldegg sediments (Switzerland), as revealed by compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA) and biomarker analysis

Soil erosion and associated sediment transfer are among the major causes of aquatic ecosystem and surface water quality impairment. Through land use and agricultural practices, human activities modify the soil erosive risk and the catchment connectivity, becoming a key factor of sediment dynamics. Hence, restoration and management plans of water bodies can only be efficient if the sediment sources and the proportion attributable to different land uses are identified. According to this aim, we applied two approaches, namely compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA) of long-chain fatty acids (FAs) and triterpenoid biomarker analysis, to a eutrophic lake, Lake Baldegg, and its agriculturally used catchment (Switzerland). Soils reflecting the five main land uses of the catchment (arable lands, temporary and permanent grasslands, mixed forests, orchards) were subjected to CSIA. The compound-specific stable isotope δ13C signatures clearly discriminate between potential grasslands (permanent and temporary) and forest sources. Signatures of agricultural land and orchards fall in between. The soil signal was compared to the isotopic signature of a lake sediment sequence covering ca. 130 years (before 1885 to 2009). The recent lake samples (1940 to 2009, with the exception of 1964 to 1972) fall into the soil isotopic signature polygon and indicate an important contribution of the forests, which might be explained by (1) the location of the forests on steep slopes, resulting in a higher connectivity of the forests to the lake, and/or (2) potential direct inputs of trees and shrubs growing along the rivers feeding the lake and around the lake. However, the lake sediment samples older than 1940 lie outside the source soils' polygon, as a result of FA contribution from a not yet identified source, most likely produced by an in situ aquatic source, either algae, bacteria or other microorganisms or an ex-site historic source from wetland soils and plants (e.g. Sphagnum species). Despite the overprint of the yet unknown source on the historic isotopic signal of the lake sediments, land use and catchment history are clearly reflected in the CSIA results, with isotopic shifts being synchronous with changes in the catchment, land use and eutrophication history. The investigated highly specific biomarkers were not detected in the lake sediment, even though they were present in the soils. However, two trimethyltetrahydrochrysenes (TTHCs), natural diagenetic products of pentacyclic triterpenoids, were found in the lake sediments. Their origin is attributed to the in situ microbial degradation of some of the triterpenoids. While the need to apportion sediment sources is especially crucial in eutrophic systems, our study stresses the importance of exercising caution with CSIA and triterpenoid biomarkers in such environments, where the active metabolism of bacteria might mask the original terrestrial isotopic signals.</p

HOLOCENE ECOLOGICAL TRAJECTORIES IN LAKE AND WETLAND SYSTEMS (AUVERGNE, FRANCE): A PALAEOENVIRONMENTAL CONTRIBUTION FOR A BETTER ASSESSMENT OF ECOSYSTEM AND LAND USE ‘S VIABILITY IN MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES.

Multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental studies are very important for the development of sustainable management strategies for ecosystems and modern landscapes. Analysing the relationship between societies, climate and environments through time, these studies contribute to define adequate policies and strategies for socio-environmental management, protection and legacy. Two complementary case studies&ndash; Aydat lake and Espinasse fen - from the south of the Cha&icirc;ne des Puys (Auvergne, Massif Central, France) are presented. The analysis of these sedimentological records (both lacustrine and peat) follows a multi-proxy approach combining abiotic and biotic palaeoindicators (density, magnetic susceptibility, X-Ray Fluorescence spectrometry, Rock-Eval, pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, molecular biomarkers). Aydat lake and Espinasse fen analyses were performed following a high spatio-temporal resolution. Results underline that long-term models of detrital input and eutrophication correspond to complex patterns with early and recurrent phases of human-induced ecological disturbances. They also evidence the existence of diversified long-term land use systems (deforestation, grazing, agriculture, hemp culture and retting) that provide fresh insights into the understanding of present-day mountain environments. This history between diversified human activities and hydrosystems responses must be taken into account for the construction of accurate retrospective and prospective model simulations of hydrosystem functioning.</p

Investigating the long-term recurrence of nostocalean cyanobacteria through a 6 700 years core in a eutrophic Lake

International audienc

Tracking plant, fungal and algal diversity through a data mining approach: towards an improved analysis of holocene lake Aydat (Puyde-Dôme, France) dynamics and ecological legacies.

International audienc

Tracking plant, fungal and algal diversity through a data mining approach: towards an improved analysis of holocene lake Aydat (Puyde-Dôme, France) dynamics and ecological legacies.

International audienc

Tracking plant, fungal and algal diversity through a data mining approach: towards an improved analysis of holocene lake Aydat (Puyde-Dôme, France) dynamics and ecological legacies.

International audienc

Patterning Holocene lake dynamics and detecting early Prehistoric human impacts: targets of an improved integration of multivariate ecological indicators thanks to the data mining approach.

International audienc

Patterning Holocene lake dynamics and detecting early Prehistoric human impacts: targets of an improved integration of multivariate ecological indicators thanks to the data mining approach.

International audienc

Water and carbon stable isotope records from natural archives : a new database and interactive online platform for data browsing, visualizing and downloading

Past climate is an important benchmark to assess the ability of climate models to simulate key processes and feedbacks. Numerous proxy records exist for stable isotopes of water and/or carbon, which are also implemented inside the components of a growing number of Earth system model. Model-data comparisons can help to constrain the uncertainties associated with transfer functions. This motivates the need of producing a comprehensive compilation of different proxy sources. We have put together a global database of proxy records of oxygen (delta O-18), hydrogen (delta D) and carbon (delta C-13) stable isotopes from different archives: ocean and lake sediments, corals, ice cores, speleothems and tree-ring cellulose. Source records were obtained from the georeferenced open access PANGAEA and NOAA libraries, complemented by additional data obtained from a literature survey. About 3000 source records were screened for chronological information and temporal resolution of proxy records. Altogether, this database consists of hundreds of dated delta O-18, delta C-13 and delta D records in a standardized simple text format, complemented with a metadata Excel catalog. A quality control flag was implemented to describe age markers and inform on chronological uncertainty. This compilation effort highlights the need to homogenize and structure the format of datasets and chronological information as well as enhance the distribution of published datasets that are currently highly fragmented and scattered. We also provide an online portal based on the records included in this database with an intuitive and interactive platform (http://climateproxiesfinder.ipsl.fr/), allowing one to easily select, visualize and download subsets of the homogeneously formatted records that constitute this database, following a choice of search criteria, and to upload new datasets. In the last part, we illustrate the type of application allowed by our database by comparing several key periods highly investigated by the paleoclimate community. For coherency with the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP), we focus on records spanning the past 200 years, the mid-Holocene (MH, 5.5-6.5 ka; calendar kilo-years before 1950), the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 1923 ka), and those spanning the last interglacial period (LIG, 115-130 ka). Basic statistics have been applied to characterize anomalies between these different periods. Most changes from the MH to present day and from LIG to MH appear statistically insignificant. Significant global differences are reported from LGM to MH with regional discrepancies in signals from different archives and complex patterns