Jr. Yang et Hc. Duthie, REGRESSION AND WEIGHTED AVERAGING MODELS RELATING SURFICIAL SEDIMENTARY DIATOM ASSEMBLAGES TO WATER DEPTH IN LAKE-ONTARIO, Journal of Great Lakes research, 21(1), 1995, pp. 84-94
Diatom assemblages in surface sediment samples in depth profiles from
Lake Ontario and from East Lake, a shoreline lake, were analyzed for t
he purpose of describing the relationship between species distribution
and water depth. At both sites species composition varied markedly wi
th sample depth. In East Lake a multiple regression of four habitat gr
oups: benthic, epiphytic, tychoplanktonic, and euplanktonic, against w
ater depth (30 cm-8 m) produced a relationship with a standard error (
SE) of 1.5 m. An analysis of the ratio of euplanktonic diatoms to peri
phytic diatoms over a transect from 3 m to 150 m in Lake Ontario produ
ced a multiple regression with an SE of 11.8 m. In another approach, w
ater depth optima for 91 diatom tara were developed using a weighted a
veraging (WA) technique. A good correlation (r(2) > 0.9) was found bet
ween measured and inferred water depth over the range 3 m to 30 m usin
g a unimodal WA regression model. The transfer functions offer the pos
sibility of inferring Holocene water level changes in Lake Ontario fro
m fossil diatom assemblages in sediment cores.