Present state of the Aral Sea: diverging physical and biological characteristics of the residual basins - PubMed (original) (raw)

Present state of the Aral Sea: diverging physical and biological characteristics of the residual basins

A S Izhitskiy et al. Sci Rep. 2016.

Abstract

Latest data on the hydrophysical and biological state of the residual basins of the Aral Sea are presented and compared. Direct, quasi-simultaneous observations were carried out in the central part of the Western Large Aral Sea, the northern extremity of the Large Aral known as Chernyshev Bay, Lake Tshchebas, and the Small Aral Sea in October 2014. The Large Aral Sea and Lake Tshchebas transformed into hyperhaline water bodies with highly special taxocene structure. The Small Aral Sea was a relatively diverse brackish ecosystem, which was rather similar to the pre-desiccation environment. The Small Aral Sea and Lake Tshchebas exhibited a fully-mixed vertical structure, whereas the Western Large Aral Sea was strongly stratified. Our data show that during desiccation, different parts of the Aral Sea experienced different environmental conditions, resulting in qualitative and quantitative differences in the physical and biological regimes among the different residual basins.

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Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Map of the three residual basins of the Aral Sea and positions of the hydrographic stations (a). Schemes of microphytobenthos material sampling in the Large Aral Sea (b), Chernyshev Bay (c), the Small Aral Sea (d) and Lake Tshchebas (e). Map and schemes were generated using Surfer 12 software,

http://www.goldensoftware.com/

.

Figure 2

Figure 2. Vertical profiles of temperature (red line) at the stations A, C1, C2, M1 and T.

Salinity values of surface and bottom water layers are shown in numbers.

Figure 3

Figure 3

(a) DGGE bands of eubacterial communities in surface and bottom samples of the 3 sampled Aral basins: Lake Tshchebas, Chernyshev Bay (Large Aral Sea), Small Aral Sea; Std: standard. (b) Cluster analysis of DGGE banding pattern.

Figure 4

Figure 4

(a) Taxocenic grouping of the diatom microphytobenthos in the 3 Aral Sea basins. (b) Two subcommunities in the taxocene grouping of benthic diatoms in the Western Basin of the Large Aral Sea: AmMS – subcommunity dominated by amphoroides on mineralized substrate, NtCS – subcommunity dominated by nitzschioides on clay substrate. Numbers show information about samples according to Supplementary Table S1.

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