Environmental News Network - Climate Change is Putting Wildlife at Risk in the World's Oldest Lake

Details: By University of Nottingham; 20.Dec

Climate change and human disturbance are putting wildlife in the world’s oldest and deepest lake at risk, according to a new study by the University of Nottingham and University College London.

Julie Swatson

Climate change and human disturbance are putting wildlife in the world’s oldest and deepest lake at risk, according to a new study by the University of Nottingham and University College London.

Lake Baikal in Siberia is the world’s oldest and deepest lake, holding one fifth of the worlds unfrozen freshwater. With 75% of its species found nowhere else in the world, the lake was designated a World Heritage Site in 1996 as the ‘most outstanding example of a freshwater ecosystem’.

The study, published in PLOS ONE, finds that microscopic algae known as diatoms, that are unique to the lake, have been declining rapidly as the lake gets warmer. These ‘algae’ are at the bottom of the food chain and provide essential food and nutrients to other organisms such as plankton, fish and the world’s only true freshwater seal.

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Climate Change is Putting Wildlife at Risk in the World's Oldest Lake