On the biodiversity of diatom communities in lakes of east China: Geochemical effects dominated after eutrophication

Aim: Over the last century, lakes all over the world have experienced significant eutrophication and become more susceptible to critical transitions. This has prompted a growing need to understand how community dynamics shift following ecological perturbations. This study aims to elucidate the present status, spatial patterns and determinants of biological diversity, and how they have changed in response to alterations driven by eutrophication.
Location: Lakes of East China, mostly in the Yangtze River Basin
Taxa: Bacillariophyceae (163 species in 33 genres) 
Methods: The environmental conditions of over sixty lakes were assessed based on parameters such as water quality, physical characteristics and biogeochemical constituents. Surface sediment samples and high-resolution sediment records were collected to quantify the biodiversity of diatom communities, and Principle Component Analysis (PCA) was used to determine the major environmental gradients. Meanwhile, linear regression, Canonic..., The modern data in this dataset were collected in the 2016 lake survey. Surface sediment samples were taken using a stainless steel grabber. Lab analysis was conducted at Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Data of the sediment cores were from published literature through personal communication. The age-depth models of the cores were attached as a supplementary document of the related article. The diatom species or genre when ambiguous (indicated as “sp.”) were identified under microscope, and at least 300 valves were counted in each sample. The relative abundance of diatoms was shown in percentage. The environmental data were all standardized so that each column has a mean at zero and an SD at one. Environmental variables with 'sur_' in the name were measured from surface sediment while the same element might have been measured in water samples. For example, sur_TN means total nitrogen concentration in the surface sediment while TN means total nit..., The data were in table delimited (.csv) format. Recommended programs are Microsoft Excel and R. R is open-source and can process these data well., # DATASET: Diatom composition and environmental factors in surface sediment of lakes in East China

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Related article: Zhao Yanjie, Wang Rong, Xu Min, Zhang Enlou. On the Biodiversity of Diatom Communities in Lakes of East China: Geochemical Effects Dominated after Eutrophication. *Journal of Biogeography.*

## File list (files found within the folder)

Zhao\_et\_al\_2023\_JBI\_1930\_compare.csv
Zhao\_et\_al\_2023\_JBI\_2006\_compare.csv
Zhao\_et\_al\_2023\_JBI\_env\_proxies.csv
Zhao\_et\_al\_2023\_JBI\_rel\_abund\_diatoms.csv
Zhao\_et\_al\_2023\_JBI\_sitesinfo.csv

## File descriptions

**Zhao\_et\_al\_2023\_JBI\_1930\_compare.csv** \- the relative abundance of diatom species **(unit: % )** in Longgan, Chaohu, Liangzi, Zhangdu, Shitang and Wushan lake near 1930 retrieved from lake sediment cores. This table contains samples (6 lakes) as rownames and 70 species names as column names.
**Zhao\_et\_al\_2023\_JBI\_2006\_compare.csv** \- the same format as *Zhao\_et\_al\_2023\_JBI\_1930\_...