Diatom–environment relationships and limnological variability: an updated quantitative tool for palaeoclimatology on sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island

Abstract

Sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island is ideally located for reconstructing past variations in Southern Hemisphere westerly wind strength. Diatoms are a valuable palaeolimnological tool on sub-Antarctic islands, providing a means to reconstruct past climate and environmental changes. Diatom communities are sensitive to changes in lake electrical conductivity (EC) linked to westerly wind–driven sea-spray inputs on Macquarie Island, and diatom–conductivity models have previously been used to infer past westerly wind variability. Here we present new diatom data from 52 lakes to assess diatom–environment relationships and develop an updated diatom–conductivity model for Macquarie Island. Seasonal and multi-year water chemistry and isotope data were analysed to assess temporal variability in hydrochemical processes and the influence of evaporation, ensuring the resulting diatom-conductivity model reflects external climatic drivers rather than local dynamics. Statistically robust transfer functions were developed for EC (bootstrapped r2 = 0.80, RMSEP = 0.40), while pH had weaker predictive performance. For EC, weighted averaging and maximum-likelihood approaches performed comparably, although the former showed reduced predictive power at high EC where low species turnover and nutrient collinearity affected accuracy. This quantitative-diatom model combined with understanding of hydrogeochemical processes provides an improved basis for reconstructing past Southern Hemisphere westerly wind variability, which can be applied in future palaeoclimate studies on Macquarie Island.