Urban Aquatic Ecosystems

Lakes and reservoirs are carbon (C) and nutrient processing factories in the landscape, altered by both climate change and anthropogenic eutrophication. As such, there is an immediate need to identify the control points (i.e., the critical drivers that affect ecosystem dynamics over time and space) on C-cycling in lakes now, as it is vital for estimating regional and global C budgets and developing accurate models to forecast the biogeochemical response of lakes to eutrophication and climate change in the future. While there has been substantial progress in understanding the rate of C-cycling in oligotrophic, mesotrophic, and dystrophic lakes, we still lack a fundamental understanding of the control points on C-cycling across timescales in lakes, particularly in those lakes already under extreme nutrient enrichment. We are investigating C-cycling rates in a suite of hypereutrophic shallow lakes in Dane County, Wisconsin to better understand the mechanisms driving the magnitude of pools and fluxes in these waterbodies.

The Wilkinson Lab founded the CWMN in 2022. It is a community science program that focuses on people and ponds around the Madison, Wisconsin area. Our goals are to connect communities through data-driven science and empower actions around improving water quality and conserving local waterbodies.