Emerging global role of small lakes and ponds: little things mean a lot

By J. Downing. Limnetica, 2010

604 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Emerging global role of small lakes and ponds: little things mean a lot Until recently, small continental waters have been completely ignored in virtually all global processes and cycles. This has resulted from the neglect of these systems and processes by ecologists and the assumption that ecosystems with a small areal extent cannot play a major role in global processes. Recent inventories based on modern geographical and mathematical approaches have shown that continental waters occupy nearly twice as much area as was previously believed. Further, these inventories have shown that small lakes and ponds dominate the areal extent of continental waters, correcting a century- long misconception that large lakes are most important. The global importance of any ecosystem type in a process or cycle is the product of the areal extent and the intensity of the process in those ecosystems. Several analyses have shown the disproportionately great intensity of many processes in small aquatic ecosystems, indicating that they play an unexpectedly major role in global cycles. Assessments of the global carbon cycle underscore the need for aquatic scientists to view their work on a global scale in order to respond to the Earth's most pressing environmental problems.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Ecology, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3e813432b1bb4644ddc608f598b632f23e99453a

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In Ecology

In Oceanography

B. Oertli

Citations in the corpus

Pond research and management in Europe: “Small is Beautiful” (2012, background): “…characteristics, such as shallow waters and small size, imply a different ecological functioning (Oertli et al., 2002; Søndergaard et al., 2005); (3) they play a major role in global cycles (Downing, 2010) and (4) they have high aquatic biodiversity (Wood et al., 2003; Williams et al., 2004).”
Using eDNA to develop a national citizen science-based monitoring programme for the great crested newt (Triturus cristatus) (2015, background): “…small waterbodies (ponds, small lakes, ditch networks, headwaters and small streams) which are enormously abundant but currently little monitored (Downing, 2010; Meyer et al., 2003), even though they support a large proportion of freshwater species and make up a large part of the water…”