5.1 Introduction
This chapter focuses on exploring the relationships between the composition of modem diatom assemblages and chemical, physical and vegetation characteristics of the KOLA lakes and their catchments. The main objective of this chapter is to identify the environmental variables influencing diatom distribution in the arctic lakes studied, to assess the relative effect of climate-related variables on diatom composition, and to develop an appropriate transfer function for later palaeoecological reconstructions. Multivariate statistical methods are applied to ascertain the relative importance and statistical significance of different environmental variables.
The general characteristics of the geography, geology, climate and vegetation of the lakes studies are given in Chapter 2. Chapter 4 presents the analysis of range and distribution of the sub-set of the measured catchment and lake characteristics (environmental characteristics, (i.e. latitude, longitude, latitude, lake area, maximum lake depth, % forest in the lake catchment and % peat in the catchment).
5.2 Sites
The geographic distribution of the sampling sites is shown in Figure 2.1., Chapter 2. A summary of the geographic characteristics of the lakes and their catchments is presented in Table 1, Appendix 1. The maps of individual sites are presented in Chapter 2, Figures 2.11 - 2.35.
5.3 Quality, range and geographical distribution of environmental variables and basic statistics
5.3.1 Introduction
Chemical and environmental variables measured in the training set are shown in Tables 1 and 2 of Appendix 3. The total environmental data-set comprises 24 environmental variables.
Table 5.1 Com parison o f w ater chem istry data for 25 lakes located in different vegetation zones
Variable Forest Forest-tundra Tundra Alpine
for/tun
A lpine tundr a
A ll lakes com bined
No o f sites 8 9 7 1 1 25 M in M a x M e a n M ed . M in M a x M e a n M ed M in M ax M e a n M e d M in M a x M e a n M e d pH 5.10 7.44 6.41 6.80 5.00 7.00 6.32 6.35 5.80 6.60 6.32 6.40 7.00 6.40 5.00 7.44 6.35 6.40 COND mS/cm 8.00 41.00 24.10 23.00 29.00 88.00 0.88 33.00 9.00 42.00 2.06 35.00 47.00 9.00 8.00 88.00 32.70 35.00 ALK , meq/1 -4.00 283.00 111.10 111.5 -9.00 210.0 69.00 61.50 24.30 59.00 6.53 37.00 210.00 24.30 -9.00 283.0 72.77 59.00 COL, °P 3.00 120.0 57.87 65.00 5.00 240.0 98.55 91.50 16.00 46.00 33.00 38.00 5.00 4.00 3.00 240.0 63.40 46.00 N H 4, pg/1 3.00 21.00 9.00 7.00 1.00 24.00 0.33 5.50 3.00 28.00 0.07 9.00 15.00 7.00 1.00 28.0 9.84 9.00 Ntot, pg/1 143.0 305.0 230.0 236.0 110.0 470.0 283.3 279.5 94.0 215.0 146.5 133.0 388.0 234.0 94.0 470.0 226.0 215.0 Ptot, pg/1 4.00 12.00 6.75 6.50 3.00 17.00 8.55 8.00 2.00 10.00 6.14 6.00 10.00 12.00 2.00 17.00 7.44 7.00 COD, mgO/1 1.40 11.20 6.91 7.40 1.67 24.40 10.45 10.25 2.45 5.40 3.92 3.72 11.00 1.63 1.40 24.40 7.13 7.30 TOC, mg/1 2.30 10.10 6.79 7.25 2.80 20.20 9.47 9.40 3.40 5.70 4.52 4.40 2.50 0.73 0.73 20.20 6.60 5.70 S i0 2 , mg/1 0.04 2.37 0.87 0.71 0.16 2.91 1.26 0.87 0.53 1.12 0.66 0.65 2.90 0.70 0.04 2.91 0.94 0.75 K, mg/1 0.13 0.99 0.46 0.38 0.23 0.83 0.53 0.34 0.23 0.31 0.27 0.28 1.17 0.04 0.04 1.17 0.39 0.34 Na, mg/1 0.44 3.32 1.55 1.49 2.93 11.3 4.78 3.60 3.19 5.64 4.60 4.45 5.50 0.50 0.44 11.3 3.53 4.45 Ca, mg/1 0.30 4.18 2.11 2.13 0.39 2.48 1.27 1.37 0.37 1.22 0.85 0.81 0.50 0.90 0.30 4.18 1.40 1.09 U) to
Table 5.1 (continued) Comparison of water chemistry and environmental data for 25 lakes located in different vegetation zones V a ria b le F o re s t F o re s t-tu n d ra T u n d r a A lp in e fo r /tu n A lp in e tu n d r a A ll la k e s co m b in ed M in M a x M e a n M ed . M in M a x M e a n M ed. M in M ax M e a n M ed . M in M a x M e a n M ed . M g, mg/1 0.14 1.40 0.68 0.65 0.63 1.36 0.89 0.90 0.56 0.89 0.69 0.71 1.00 0.14 0.14 1.40 0.74 0.71 S 0 4 , mg/1 1.06 5.00 2.66 2.38 1.26 4.71 2.51 2.84 1.90 2.71 2.33 2.23 1.40 1.80 1.06 5.00 2.48 2.71 C l, mg/1 0.65 1.94 1.31 1.315 3.71 21.9 13.5 5.92 4.96 9.43 7.74 7.68 0.80 0.62 0.62 21.9 5.21 5.51 Fe, mg/1 1.8 190.0 64.9 34.5 19.0 320.0 124.3 95.0 20.0 49.0 4.6 35.0 2.0 49.0 1.8 320.0 72.3 74.0 L a t i t u d e 67.33 68.44 68.12 68.35 68.42 69.14 68.78 68.53 69.02 69.11 69.06 69.02 67.42 67.57 67.30 69.14 68.40 68.50 L o n g itu d e 28.41 34.05 30.65 30.37 32.37 35.37 33.87 32.84 34.52 36.04 35.28 34.59 33.28 32.29 28.40 36.40 32.90 34.00 A lti tu d e , m 104.0 179.0 128.0 115.7 101.0 240.0 170.5 150 79.0 260.0 155.87 125 460.0 475.3 79.0 506.0 174.0 170.0 M a x D e p th , m 3.0 6.2 4.5 4.6 1.5 19.2 6.0 4.1 1.5 18.5 7.81 6.5 8.0 16.0 1.5 19.2 6.5 5.5 A r e a , km^ 0.04 O il 0.054 0.04 0.04 0.09 0.056 0.045 0.04 0.3 O il 0.04 0.04 0.09 0.04 0.30 0.07 0.04 % f o r e s t 42.9 92.9 64.4 66.0 0.1 57.4 20.8 8.3 0.1 1.0 0.19 1.0 0.1 0.1 0.1 92.9 28.3 1.0 % p e a t 8.2 46.8 26.82 22.5 0.1 14.6 4.66 9.4 0.1 6.7 3.87 6.7 0.1 0.1 0.1 46.8 11.3 1.6 U) U)
Tables 5.1a and 5.1b compare the results of summary statistics (maximum (Max), minimum (Min), mean, and median (Med)) of water chemistry and environmental characteristics for the total training set and for the three catchment vegetation zones i.e. tundra, forest-tundra and boreal forest. Water chemistry characteristics of two alpine sites (KOLA2, forest-tundra and KOLA25, tundra) are shown separately.
On the whole, the water chemistry characteristics of the total set of lakes are very diverse. The diversity of chemical variables of the study sites is also indicated in Figures 1 and 2 (Appendix 3) which show frequency histograms for a number of chemical variables.
5.3.2 pH and alkalinity
The pH data have a skewed distribution with the majority of values falling in the range between 6.3 and 6.7 with a mean and median for the whole training set of 6.41 and 6.40 respectively. pH values for the full data-set range from 5.00 to 7.44. Only four sites (KOLA3, KOLA17, KOLA19 and KOLA22) have pH lower than 6.0 and two sites (KOLAl and KOLA2) have pH greater than 7.0 (Table 2, Appendix 3).
Alkalinity values are generally low with a mean for the data-set of 72.77 peq 1'^ and median of 111.1. The sites falls in the range from -9 to 283 peq 1*. The four lowest pH sites expectedly have low alkalinity and are the only sites with negative alkalinity values. Six sites have a relatively high alkalinity of over 100 peq 1'^ (KOLAl, KOLA2, KOLAl3, K0LA15, KOLA 18 and KOLA20). K0LA2 (alpine forest-tundra) has the highest alkalinity value within the training set because it is situated in the Khibiny mountains on ultra-alkaline bedrock.
pH and alkalinity distribution within forest, forest-tundra and tundra (alpine sites are included into tundra sites) is illustrated by means of box-and-whisker plots in Figures 5.1 and 5.2. The box and whiskers represents the total range of a variable, while the box represents 50% of the inter-quartile range (25% on the either side of the median, the line dissecting each box). Both pH and alkalinity show no geographical patterns in distribution of their values among the lakes within the training set. Generally, the tundra lakes have a smaller range of pH and