Influence of internal seiche dynamics on vertical movement of fish

1. Internal seiches are common in stratified lakes, with significant effects on stratification patterns, hydrodynamics and vertical nutrient transport. In particular, seiche can change the vertical distribution of the thermocline and the cold hypolimnetic and warm epilimnetic water masses by several meters on a timescale of a few hours. The results are rapid and strong changes in temperature profiles and oxygen availability that can have profound effects on vagrant and sessile organisms. Internal seiche dynamics could therefore affect fish communities directly through physiological stress and elevated mortality, and indirectly through prey distribution. 2. The aim of this study was to analyze the effects of internal seiche dynamics on lacustrine fish behaviour, and to characterize fish reaction patterns, with the main focus on vertical movement of fish in the vicinity of a shifting thermocline, and avoidance of cold hypolimnetic water. 3. The analysis was based on acoustic telemetry data from Lake Milada, a post-mining lake in the Czech Republic, with a total of 55 tracked individuals of four species: northern pike (Esox lucius), wels catfish (Silurus glanis), tench (Tinca tinca) and rudd (Scardinius erythropthalmus). 4. The effects of seiche dynamics on the four species studied were weak but significant during the day, but only on rudd during the night. Upward seiche produced stronger reactions in fish than downward seiche, and the effects were manifested only during the strongest seiche events. 5. Thermocline shifting during seiche events may induce a transient reduction in habitat for seiche-reacting species, thus potentially affecting predation and other inter- and intra-specific interactions, and probably affecting fish community dynamics.

Laboratory experiments on the influence of stratification and a bottom sill on seiche damping

The damping of water surface standing waves (seiche modes) and the associated excitation of baroclinic internal waves are studied experimentally in a quasi-two-layer laboratory setting with a topographic obstacle at the bottom representing a seabed sill. We find that topography-induced baroclinic wave drag contributes markedly to seiche damping in such systems. Two major pathways of barotropic–baroclinic energy conversions were observed: the stronger one – involving short-wavelength internal modes of large amplitudes – may occur when the node of the surface seiche is situated above the close vicinity of the sill. The weaker, less significant other pathway is the excitation of long waves or internal seiches along the pycnocline that may resonate with the low-frequency components of the decaying surface forcing.

Internal seiches in a karstic mesotrophic lake (Prošće, Plitvice Lakes, Croatia)

A lake temperature experiment was performed at the Prošće, Plitvice Lakes, Croatia during a 4-month observational period (6 July–4 November, 2019) to investigate the occurrence and characteristics of internal seiches in the lake. Two-minute mean lake temperatures were measured at a single lake point at fifteen depths ranging from 0.2 to 27 m. Analysis of these data provided insight into the previously unknown and rather complex Prošće Lake seiching. Power spectral densities (PSDs) and magnitude-squared coherences (γ2), together with corresponding cross-spectrum phases that were obtained from the hourly mean lake temperature, air pressure and wind speed data, suggested the presence of three vertical modes of an internal seiche. The first mode (V1H1, period of 6.09 h) corresponds to free baroclinic oscillations; the second mode (V2H1, period of 11.64 h) and the third mode (V3H1, period of 25.60 h) are associated with forced baroclinic oscillations of the lake interior. Excitation of the higher vertical modes is attributed to the influence of dense tributary water. Due to this water influence, vertical temperature gradients in the lake interior were relatively weak; consequently, a single thick metalimnion and/or two metalimnetic layers were established, which resulted in the presence of the V2H1 and V3H1 modes, respectively. Additionally, due to the influence of tributary water, the lake did not attain the typical stratification that is characterized by hypolimnetic temperatures of ≈ 4°C. Instead, during the entire observational period, the hypolimnetic temperatures were consistently above 7.6 °C.

Laboratory experiments on the influence of stratification and a bottom sill on seiche damping

The damping of water surface standing waves (seiche modes) and the associated excitation of baroclinic internal waves are studied experimentally in a quasi-two-layer laboratory setting with a topographic obstacle at the bottom, representing a seabed sill. We find that topography-induced baroclinic wave drag indeed contributes markedly to seiche damping in such systems. Two major pathways of barotropic-baroclinic energy conversions were observed: the stronger one – involving short-wavelength internal modes of large amplitudes – may occur when the node of the surface seiche is situated above the close vicinity of the sill. The weaker, less significant other pathway is the excitation of long waves, internal seiches along the pycnocline that may resonate with the low frequency components of the decaying surface forcing.

Speed of sound gradients due to summer thermal stratification can reduce the detection range of acoustic fish tags: results from a field study in Hamilton Harbour, Ontario.

Understanding detection range is a key factor for the use of acoustic telemetry in fisheries research. Lakes have strong seasonal changes in thermal stratification, as well as short-term changes due to internal seiches. These thermal gradients in lakes imply strong sound-speed gradients that can refract and diverge acoustic signals, leading to acoustic attenuation and smaller detection range. Using field-based range testing and the Bellhop acoustic model, we investigated how changes in stratification lead to changes in detection range within Hamilton Harbour, Ontario, Canada. During the summer stratified period, the detection range was less than 350 m, whereas in the isothermal fall, range was up to 500 m. Range test data from three separate field observations showed a good correlation with Bellhop predictions. Due to the intense internal seiches in Hamilton Harbour, the stratification in the shallower littoral regions essentially switched between stratified and isothermal conditions over short timescales, which is predicted to lead to high temporal variability in detection range that must be accounted for during the analysis and interpretation of telemetry derived data.

Evolution and dynamics of the vertical temperature profile in an oligotrophic lake

In this study, the fine-scale responses of a stratified oligotrophic karstic lake (Kozjak Lake, Plitvice Lakes, Croatia; the lake fetch is 2.3 km, and the maximum depth is 46 m) to atmospheric forcing on the lake surface are investigated. Lake temperatures measured at a resolution of 2 min at 15 depths ranging from 0.2 to 43 m, which were observed during the 6 July–5 November 2018 period, were analyzed. The results show thermocline deepening from 10 m at the beginning of the observation period to 16 m at the end of the observation period, where the latter depth corresponds to approximately one-third of the lake depth. The pycnocline followed the same pattern, except that the deepening occurred throughout the entire period approximately 1 m above the thermocline. On average, thermocline deepening was 3–4 cm d−1, while the maximum deepening (12.5 cm d−1) coincided with the occurrence of internal seiches. Furthermore, the results indicate three different types of forcings on the lake surface; two of these forcings have diurnal periodicity – (1) continuous heat fluxes and (2) occasional periodic stronger winds – whereas forcing (3) corresponds to occasional nonperiodic stronger winds with steady along-basin directions. Continuous heat fluxes (1) produced forced diurnal oscillations in the lake temperature within the first 5 m of the lake throughout the entire observation period. Noncontinuous periodic stronger winds (2) resulted in occasional forced diurnal oscillations in the lake temperatures at depths from approximately 7 to 20 m. Occasional strong and steady along-basin winds (3) triggered both baroclinic internal seiches with a principal period of 8.0 h and barotropic surface seiches with a principal period of 9 min. Lake currents produced by the surface seiches under realistic-topography conditions generated baroclinic oscillations of the thermocline region (at depths from 9 to 17 m) with periods corresponding to the period of surface seiches (≈ 9 min), which, to the best of our knowledge, has not been reported in previous lake studies.

Evolution and dynamics of the vertical temperature profile in an oligotrophic lake

Abstract. In this study, the fine-scale responses of a stratified oligotrophic karstic lake (Kozjak, Plitvice Lakes, Croatia; lake fetch is 2.3 km and maximum depth is 46 m) to atmospheric forcings on the lake surface are investigated. Lake temperatures measured at a resolution of 2 min at 15 depths ranging from 0.2 to 43 m, which were observed during the 6 July–5 November 2018 period were analyzed. The results show thermocline deepening from 10 m at the beginning, to 16 m at the end of the observational period, where the latter corresponds to approximately one third of the lake depth. The pycnocline followed the same pattern, except that the deepening occurred throughout the entire period approximately 1 m above the thermocline. On average, thermocline deepening was 3–4 cm per day, while the maximum deepening (12.5 cm per day) coincided with the occurrence of internal seiches. Furthermore, the results indicate three different types of forcings on the lake surface, and two of these forcings have diurnal periodicity: (1) continuous heat fluxes and (2) occasional periodic stronger winds, while the (3) forcing corresponds to occasional nonperiodic stronger winds with along the basin-steady directions. Continuous heat fluxes (1) produced forced diurnal oscillations in the lake temperature within the first 5 meters of the lake throughout the entire observational period. Noncontinuous periodic stronger winds (2) resulted in occasional forced diurnal oscillations in the lake temperatures at depths from approximately 7 to 20 m. Occasional steady along-the-basin stronger winds (3) triggered both, baroclinic internal seiches with a principal period of 8.0 h, and, barotropic surface seiches with a principal period of 9 min. Lake currents produced by the surface seiches under realistic-topography conditions generated baroclinic oscillations of the thermocline region (at depths of 9–17 m) with periods corresponding to the period of surface seiches (≈ 9 min), which to our knowledge, has not been reported in previous lake studies. Finally, a simple multiple linear regression model of the near-surface temperature (0.2 m), which depends on the air temperature and wind speed, can only be used as a rough estimate of the daily mean lake temperature under weak wind and undisturbed air temperature pattern conditions.

Wind-induced internal seiches in Vossoroca reservoir, PR, Brazil

ABSTRACT The vertical movements caused by internal waves in lakes and reservoirs have chemical and biological consequences for these ecosystems. The vast majority of studies that investigate internal waves are conducted on large lakes. There are just few researches that investigate this phenomenon on dendritic reservoirs. The purpose of this research was to identify internal waves (baroclinic mode) in the Vossoroca reservoir by using temperature time series recorded between May to November 2012. A two-layer method was used which considered rigid upper and lower boundaries. Moreover, the potential flow theory was used for both layers since the flow within each layer was considered irrotational. From the dispersion relation, we obtained the theoretical shallow internal wave period. The power spectral density (PSD) of temperature series of thermocline depth, provided by fast Fourier transform, helped in the identification on the frequency peak. Subsequently, the theoretical period was compared with the frequency spectra. Using a careful analysis (excluding the interference of solar radiation and intensity of wind), we observed a clear peak in November due to an internal wave with period around 8 hours, which matched the theoretical calculation from the dispersion relation equation for V1H1 mode. Weak winds from southwest excited a V1H1 baroclinic mode. According to spectral analysis, after the passage of this long-basin internal seiches, we identified the formation of higher vertical internal seiche modes. In addition, we observe indications of V1H1 mode degeneration.