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Multidecadal Time Series of Measured Chlorophyll-a in Lakes and Estuarine-Coastal Ecosystems

General Information
Data Package:
Local Identifier:edi.1811.1
Title:Multidecadal Time Series of Measured Chlorophyll-a in Lakes and Estuarine-Coastal Ecosystems
Alternate Identifier:DOI PLACE HOLDER
Abstract:

The photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll-a is a commonly measured index of phytoplankton biomass and water quality across all aquatic ecosystem types. Some monitoring and research programs have sustained chlorophyll-a measurements for decades at monthly or higher frequency. Each of these time series is an invaluable record of phytoplankton variability at a particular location. The patterns of that variability have been essential for identifying the underlying processes of phytoplankton change at time scales of days, months, seasons, years and decades. Multidecadal series are rare and valuable because they provide empirical records of phytoplankton changes over the recent decades of unprecedented global change. These records also provide an empirical basis for comparing patterns and rates of change across geographic regions and ecosystem types.

This data package contains multidecadal time series of measured chlorophyll-a concentration in three ecosystem types: 134 freshwater lakes (including a small number of reservoirs) that do not freeze; 78 high latitude lakes that do freeze; and 176 coastal ecosystems defined as water bodies where freshwater and seawater mix, including estuaries, coastal bays and lagoons, tidal rivers, and the Baltic Sea. Although there are other published compilations of chlorophyll-a time series, this package was compiled specifically to report observations made at monthly or higher frequency and sustained over multiple decades. The mean time series duration in this package is 33 years, and the mean number of sampling dates per site was 503 (range 186 to 2381). Thus, this data package provides an empirical basis for analyses to measure and compare decadal-scale patterns and rates of phytoplankton biomass variability between inland lakes and water bodies at the land-ocean interface.

All chl-a measurements reported here were accessed from published repositories, except these four sites. We acknowledge and thank the following data providers for permission to include data from their study sites in this package:

- Bahía Blanca, Argentina: Valeria Ana Guinder, Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía (IADO) Consejo, Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)

- Neuse River Estuary US: Hans W. Paerl, Departments of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences and Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences

- Lake Tahoe US: S. Geoffrey Schladow and Shohei Watabe, Tahoe Environmental Research Center, University of California, Davis

- Experimental Lakes, Canada: Chris Hay and Scott Higgins, IISD Experimental Lakes Area, Org ID: https://ror.org/05revcs89, Email: eladata@iisd-ela.org, Online URL: https://www.iisd.org/ela/

Each time series in this data package resulted from heroic investments of time and resources and an unwavering commitment to repeated observations to reveal patterns and understand processes of changes in our aquatic ecosystems. This data package is an homage to those heroes. Each observational program is listed and acknowledged in the file MetadataTable Sampling Locations.

Publication Date:2024-11-25
For more information:
Visit: DOI PLACE HOLDER

Time Period
Begin:
1966
End:
2024

People and Organizations
Contact:Cloern, James  [  email ]
Creator:Cloern, James (USGS, Emeritus Senior Scientists)
Creator:Jassby, Alan D. (University of California, Davis, Research Ecologist Emeritus)

Data Entities
Data Table Name:
DataTable - Chlorophyll
Description:
Table of chlorophyll-a concentrations measured at unique locations and sampling dates
Data Table Name:
MetaData - Sampling Locations
Description:
Descriptions of sites where chlorophyll-a was measured.
Detailed Metadata

Data Entities

Data Table

Data:https://pasta-s.lternet.edu/package/data/eml/edi/1811/1/95f4728a355d837e7a634817502ab373
Name:DataTable - Chlorophyll
Description:Table of chlorophyll-a concentrations measured at unique locations and sampling dates
Number of Records:195319
Number of Columns:4

Table Structure
Object Name:DataTable - Chlorophyll.csv
Size:7534298 byte
Authentication:c196d1856ff0320857edd2cb66d00eba Calculated By MD5
Text Format:
Number of Header Lines:1
Record Delimiter:\r\n
Orientation:column
Simple Delimited:
Field Delimiter:,
Quote Character:"

Table Column Descriptions
 water_body_namestation_iddatechlorophyll_a
Column Name:water_body_name  
station_id  
date  
chlorophyll_a  
Definition:Name of the lake or coastal ecosytemSampling station name or numberDate of Sample CollectionChlorophyll-a concentration
Storage Type:string  
string  
dateTime  
float  
Measurement Type:nominalnominaldateTimeratio
Measurement Values Domain:
Definitiontext
Definitiontext
FormatYYYY-MM-DD
Precision
UnitmicrogramPerLiter
Typereal
Missing Value Code:        
Accuracy Report:        
Accuracy Assessment:        
Coverage:        
Methods:        

Data Table

Data:https://pasta-s.lternet.edu/package/data/eml/edi/1811/1/aa1a1c3fd9772903f17887c8b5b3cc5a
Name:MetaData - Sampling Locations
Description:Descriptions of sites where chlorophyll-a was measured.
Number of Records:388
Number of Columns:11

Table Structure
Object Name:MetaData - Sampling Locations.csv
Size:78710 byte
Authentication:ccceefeb6d917802a156b08f3c068826 Calculated By MD5
Text Format:
Number of Header Lines:1
Record Delimiter:\r\n
Orientation:column
Simple Delimited:
Field Delimiter:,
Quote Character:"

Table Column Descriptions
 water_body_namestation_idnumber_of_samplesstart_yearend_yearwater_body_typelatitude_northlongitude_eastcountryprogram_or_data_sourcedata_access
Column Name:water_body_name  
station_id  
number_of_samples  
start_year  
end_year  
water_body_type  
latitude_north  
longitude_east  
country  
program_or_data_source  
data_access  
Definition:Name of the lake or estuarine-coastal ecosystemName or number of the sampling station.Number of chlorophyll-a samples collected at a siteFirst year of samplingLast year of sampling.Type of aquatic ecosystemLatitude N of the sampling location.Longitude East of the sampling stationCountryName of the program or institute responsible for chlorophyll-a sampling and analyses.URL where data were accessed and access date
Storage Type:string  
string  
integer  
integer  
integer  
string  
float  
float  
string  
string  
string  
Measurement Type:nominalnominalratioratiorationominalratiorationominalnominalnominal
Measurement Values Domain:
Definitiontext
Definitiontext
Unitnumber
Typeinteger
Unitnumber
Typeinteger
Unitnumber
Typeinteger
Allowed Values and Definitions
Enumerated Domain 
Code Definition
CodeCoastal
DefinitionEstuarine or coastal ecosystems
Source
Code Definition
CodeLake
DefinitionInland lakes that do no freeze.
Source
Code Definition
CodeLakef
DefinitionInland lands that freeze.
Source
Unitdegree
Typereal
Unitdegree
Typereal
Definitiontext
Definitiontext
Definitiontext
Missing Value Code:                      
Accuracy Report:                      
Accuracy Assessment:                      
Coverage:                      
Methods:                      

Data Package Usage Rights

This data package is released to the "public domain" under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 "No Rights Reserved" (see: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). It is considered professional etiquette to provide attribution of the original work if this data package is shared in whole or by individual components. A generic citation is provided for this data package on the website https://portal.edirepository.org (herein "website") in the summary metadata page. Communication (and collaboration) with the creators of this data package is recommended to prevent duplicate research or publication. This data package (and its components) is made available "as is" and with no warranty of accuracy or fitness for use. The creators of this data package and the website shall not be liable for any damages resulting from misinterpretation or misuse of the data package or its components. Periodic updates of this data package may be available from the website. Thank you.

Keywords

By Thesaurus:
(No thesaurus)Chlorophyll, Phytoplankton, Lake, Estuary, Coastal, Global Change, Time Series
LTER Controlled Vocabularywater quality

Methods and Protocols

These methods, instrumentation and/or protocols apply to all data in this dataset:

Methods and protocols used in the collection of this data package
Description:

There is no one standard method for sampling and measuring chlorophyll-a concentration, so the values reported here were derived from a range of commonly used methods. For example, the Chesapeake Bay Program collects water samples at discrete depths and analyzes them with USEPA Method 446.0. Chlorophyll-containing phytoplankton in water samples are concentrated by filtration on a glass fiber filter, and pigments are extracted in 90% acetone. Absorbance of the extract is measured with a spectrophotometer at 750 and 664 nm before acidification and at 750 and 665 nm after acidification with 0.1 N HCl. Chlorophyll-a concentration is then calculated from absorbance measurements using the equations of Lorenzen (1967). For this method, the reported value is chlorophyll-a concentration "corrected" for the presence of phaeopigments. Some studies report "total" chlorophyll-a that includes phaeopigments. For studies in the English Lakes District, depth-integrated water samples are collected from 0 to 5 m depth and chlorophyll-a is extracted in hot, 90% methanol, and estimated spectrophotometrically using the method of Talling and Driver (1963). At some sites the chlorophyll-a series are from spectrophotometric analyses using the method of Welschmeyer (1994), and measurements in French Lakes are from the method of Strickland and Parsons (1972). Values reported here are for surface (uppermost) samples if sampling was done at multiple depths. They are means of replicate measurements when multiple samples were collected at the same station, date and depth. The reported chlorophyll-a concentrations were not edited except to remove negative values.

Lorenzen, C. J. 1967. Determination of chlorophyll and phaeopigments: spectrophotometric equations. Limnology and Oceanography 12: 343-346.

Strickland, J. D. H., and T. R. Parsons. 1972. A Practical Handbook of Seawater Analysis.

Talling, J. F., and D. Driver. 1963. Some problems in the estimation of chlorophyll a in phytoplankton., p. 142-146. Proceedings of the Conference on Primary Productivity Measurement, Marine and Freshwater.

Welschmeyer, N. A. 1994. Fluorometric analysis of chlorophyll a in the presence of chlorophyll b and pheopigments. Limnology and Oceanography 39: 1985-1992.

People and Organizations

Publishers:
Organization:Environmental Data Initiative
Email Address:
info@edirepository.org
Web Address:
https://edirepository.org
Id:https://ror.org/0330j0z60
Creators:
Individual: James Cloern
Organization:USGS
Position:Emeritus Senior Scientists
Email Address:
jimcloern@gmail.com
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5880-6862
Individual: Alan D. Jassby
Organization:University of California, Davis
Position:Research Ecologist Emeritus
Email Address:
adjassby@ucdavis.edu
Contacts:
Individual: James Cloern
Email Address:
jimcloern@gmail.com
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5880-6862
Metadata Providers:
Individual: James Cloern
Email Address:
jimcloern@gmail.com
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5880-6862

Temporal, Geographic and Taxonomic Coverage

Temporal, Geographic and/or Taxonomic information that applies to all data in this dataset:

Time Period
Begin:
1966
End:
2024
Geographic Region:
Description:Data reported here are measurements made in lakes and estuarine-coastal waters.
Bounding Coordinates:
Northern:  68.6Southern:  -38.5
Western:  -151.7Eastern:  176.5

Project

Parent Project Information:

Title:Progress Report on Nutrient Management
Personnel:
Individual: James Cloern
Position:Senior Scientist Emeritus
Email Address:
jimcloern@gmail.com
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5880-6862
Role:Principle Investigator
Individual: Alan Jassby
Email Address:
adjassby@ucdavis.edu
Role:Principle Investigator
Abstract:

This data set was compiled to measure trends of chlorophyll-a change to assess progress in reducing nutrient inputs to lakes and estuarine-coastal waters.

Related Project:
Title:Bahía Blanca, Argentina
Personnel:
Individual: Valeria Ana Guinder
Email Address:
vguinder@criba.edu.ar
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3852-9570
Role:Data Provider
Abstract:

We thank Valeria Ana Guinder, Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía (IADO) Consejo, Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), for allowing us to include in this data package chlorophyll-a time series from Bahía Blanca, Argentina

Related Project:
Title:Neuse River Estuary
Personnel:
Individual: Hans Paerl
Email Address:
hans_paerl@unc.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4725-1870
Role:Data Provider
Abstract:

We thank Hans W. Paerl, Depts. of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences and Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences for allowing us to include in this data package chlorophyll-a time series from the Neuse River Estuary.

Related Project:
Title:Experimental Lakes Area
Personnel:
Individual: Chris Hay
Email Address:
chay@iisd-ela.org
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5971-8901
Role:Data Provider
Abstract:

We thank Chris Hay, IISD Experimental Lakes Area; Org ID: https://ror.org/05revcs89;

for allowing us to include in this data package chlorophyll-a time series from the Experimental Lakes Area Canada.

Related Project:
Title:Lake Tahoe
Personnel:
Individual: S. Geoffrey Schladow
Email Address:
gschladow@ucdavis.edu
Id:https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4205-1001
Role:Data Provideer
Abstract:

We thank S. Geoffrey Schladow, Professor Emeritus of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering; Director Emeritus, Tahoe Environmental Research Center; University of California, Davis for allowing us to include in this data package chlorophyll-a time series from Lake Tahoe.

Maintenance

Maintenance:
Description:

There is no plan to add data to this data package.

Frequency:
Other Metadata

Additional Metadata

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        |     |___element 'emlEditor'
        |     |        \___attribute 'app' = 'ezEML'
        |     |        \___attribute 'release' = '2024.10.30'
        |     |___text '\n      '
        |___text '\n   '

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