Impact of global and local pressures on the ecology of a medium-sized pre-alpine Lake

Global warming has different impacts on the ecology of lacustrine environments. The progressive increase of water column stability leads to a reduction of exchanges between surface and deep layers, an expansion of the anoxic/hypoxic layer in productive environments (Verburg et al., 2003), and an increase of the nutrients release from sediments (Jeppesen et al., 2009). In general, lake warming is expected to enhance many biogeochemical processes, exacerbating the process of eutrophication (Schindler, 2001) and altering the trophic web (Schindler, 2001).