Reconstructing the salinity and environment of the Limfjord and Vejlerne Nature Reserve, Denmark, using a diatom model for brackish lakes and fjords

Diatoms in surface sediments from a data set of 27 brackish lakes and nine fjords in Jutland, Denmark (range 0.2 – 31 g·L–1 total dissolved solids (TDS)), were analysed using multivariate methods to determine response to measured parameters (depth, total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), TN/TP, salinity, water body type). Water body type, salinity, depth and TP together explained 25.3% of the variation in the diatom data and were all independently significant predictors. A diatom–salinity model (r2 jack = 0.887, root mean square error of prediction = 0.246 log salinity, g·L–1) was developed from the 36 sample training set and applied to fossil diatom assemblages in three sediment cores from the east Vejlerne wetland, Denmark, a nature reserve created after the damming of an embayment of the polyhaline Limfjord (~26 g·L–1 TDS) in the late 19th century. The diatom-inferred salinity reconstructions reflect the known salinity history of the Limfjord and the freshwater–subsaline Vejlerne lakes, and appear sensitive to documented North Sea storms in the 16th and 17th centuries, which had major impacts on the brackish Limfjord herring fishery. Diatom–salinity models may be useful tools in long-term studies of coastal and estuarine areas to test hypotheses concerning aquatic resources and ecological, hydrographic, and cultural change