The role of nitrogen and phosphorus as limiting nutrients in the North East US

David Richardson (SUNY New Paltz), Kyoko Yokota (SUNY Oneonta) and others, including Kristen Holeck

Experiments were conducted across the Northeast US to evaluate the importance of nitrogen and phosphorus as limiting nutrients in a variety of lakes.  The experiments were conducted in small in situ mesocosms in the summer of 2018 and repeated in 2019 in Oneida Lake and a limited number of additional lakes.  Oneida Lake was one of the few lakes with phosphorus as the primary limiting nutrients at that time, most of the other lakes were co-limited by nitrogen and phosphorus.  However, the results of repeated experiments suggested that Oneida Lake becomes nitrogen limited later in the year. A manuscript was accepted for Limnology and Oceanography in 2022.