On a razor’s edge: maintaining lake ecosystem services and functions in an extreme world

Summary

Global change has had significant effects on aquatic ecosystem communities and on human society. Climatic and land use trends are anticipated to become more intense in the coming years, especially with extreme events such as heatwaves and floods. It is important to understand how our ecosystems and our societies will be affected so we can implement informed management plans to reduce the ensuing repercussions. In this thesis, the research traces a cause-effect relationship from 1) the occurrence of the extreme event(s) to 2) their effect on aquatic ecosystem functions to 3) the effect on ecosystem service availability and 4) the implications that working across sectors (such as scientists and lake managers) could have on reducing the harmful effects. The four chapters look at various combinations of this cause-effect relationship to further understand how lakes are affected by extreme events and how we can begin making action plans to protect them.