An assessment of the potential impacts of climate change on freshwater habitats and biota of Indiana, USA

Tomas O. Höök (), Carolyn J. Foley (), Paris Collingsworth (), Leslie Dorworth (), Brant Fisher (), Jason T. Hoverman (), Elizabeth LaRue (), Mark Pyron () and Jennifer Tank ()
Additional contact information
Tomas O. Höök: Purdue University
Carolyn J. Foley: Purdue University
Paris Collingsworth: Purdue University
Leslie Dorworth: Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant College Program
Brant Fisher: Indiana Department of Natural Resources
Jason T. Hoverman: Purdue University
Elizabeth LaRue: Purdue University
Mark Pyron: Ball State University
Jennifer Tank: University of Notre Dame

Climatic Change, 2020, vol. 163, issue 4, No 14, 1897-1916

Abstract: Abstract Recent climate-driven, physico-chemical changes documented in aquatic systems throughout the world are expected to intensify in the future. Specifically, changes in key environmental attributes of aquatic systems, such as water quantity, clarity, temperatures, ice cover, seasonal flow regimes, external loading, and oxygen content, will undoubtedly have a broad set of direct and indirect ecological consequences. Some anticipated impacts may be similar across different aquatic ecosystems, while others may be system-specific. Here, we review the potential effects of climatic changes for different freshwater habitats within the state of Indiana, USA, a Midwestern state with diverse land and water features. Given this heterogeneity and that the state is among the southernmost states of the US Midwest, evaluation of freshwater habitats of Indiana provides a useful perspective on potential impacts of climate change. In our study, we first review expected or anticipated changes to physico-chemical and habitat conditions in wetlands, lotic systems, small glacial lakes and Lake Michigan. We then highlight anticipated responses of select aquatic biota to these changes. We describe how climatic changes may interact with other anthropogenic stressors affecting freshwater habitats and consider the potential for evolutionary adaptation of freshwater aquatic organisms to mediate any responses. Given anticipated changes, we suggest aquatic ecosystem managers take a precautionary approach broadly applicable in temperate regions to (a) conserve a diversity of aquatic habitats, (b) enhance species diversity and both inter- and intra-population genetic variation, and (c) limit stressors which may exacerbate the risk of decline for aquatic biota.

Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-019-02502-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:climat:v:163:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s10584-019-02502-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10584

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-019-02502-w

Access Statistics for this article

Climatic Change is currently edited by M. Oppenheimer and G. Yohe

More articles in Climatic Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().