Hydrologic and nutrient-driven regime shifts of cyanobacterial and eukaryotic algal communities in a large shallow lake: Evidence from empirical state indicator and ecological network analyses

The detection and prediction of lake ecosystem responses to environmental changes are pressing scientific challenge of major global relevance. Specifically, an understanding of lake ecosystem stability over long-term scales is urgently needed to identify impending ecosystem regime shifts induced by human activities and improve lake ecosystem protection. This study investigated regime shifts in cyanobacterial and eukaryotic algal communities in a large shallow lake over a century in response to nutrient enrichment and hydrologic regulation using evidence from empirical state indicators and ecological network analyses of sedimentary-inferred communities. The diversity and structure of cyanobacterial and eukaryotic algal communities were investigated from sedimentary DNA records and used, for the first time, as state variables of the lake ecosystem to detect lake stability. Two regime shifts were inferred in the 1970s and 2000s based on temporal analysis of empirical indicators. Co-occurrence network analysis based on taxonomic abundance distributions and presence/absence patterns also supported the two regime shifts based on architectural features of the ecological networks. Moreover, the associations of cyanobacterial and eukaryotic algal taxa were observed to be non-random across time. The abrupt driver-mediated regime shift in the 1970s is characterized by the disappearance of submerged vegetation, significantly increased relative abundances of Microcystis and Chlorophyta taxa, and was primarily caused by sluice construction. The critical transition observed in the 2000s was manifested by the occurrence of serious cyanobacterial blooms and was triggered by increased nutrient loading with the development of urbanization and agricultural intensification. This study reveals the important roles of hydrologic regulation and nutrient loading in the temporal successional dynamics of a shallow lake ecosystem, providing new insights into regime shifts of lake ecosystems that can help inform future efforts to predict important lake ecosystem state changes.