Are Current Rates of Atmospheric Nitrogen Deposition Influencing Lakes in the Eastern Canadian Arctic?

Although arctic lakes rank among the most pristine ecosystems remaining on Earth, widespread paleoecological analyses have revealed rapid recent changes in lake ecology that largely surpass Holocene natural variability and that are generally attributed to climate warming since the end of the Little Ice Age. However, the possibility that climate is only one dimension of these unprecedented ecological shifts remains an untested possibility, especially given that current warming may not yet exceed maximum, naturally mediated, postglacial warmth. In this paper, we assess whether increased anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition from distant sources is contributing to directional changes in the biogeochemistry and ecology of two remote lakes on Baffin Island in the eastern Canadian Arctic. Paleolimnological analyses, including diatom assemblages and a suite of biogeochemical proxies (total organic matter, biogenic silica, organic N and C contents, and stable isotopic ratios) reveal a complex suite of progressive changes that are coherently expressed in both lakes. Diatom assemblages began to change as early as the mid-19th century, but major inflections in the biogeochemical proxies occurred significantly later, being most pronounced after 1950. Among these changes are increases in sediment organic matter, depletions of 2‰ in sediment δ15N, and decoupling of δ13C and δ15N signatures. It seems likely that climate warming, subsequently coupled to anthropogenic N deposition, is synergistically driving these ecosystems towards states for which no prior natural analogs exist.