Biodiversity trends across urban and rural lakes in Ohio

Freshwater lakes supply local residents important culture and ecosystem services, yet freshwater lakes face many challenges from surrounding human activity that can affect local biodiversity. Nearby human activity can alter the biodiversity surrounding a lake by increasing risk of nutrient runoff, pollution, and species introduction or removal. In Ohio, few studies have explored how urban and rural lakes might differ in biodiversity trends, particularly trends within lakes surrounding fauna. The aim of this study was to compare the biodiversity of urban and rural lakes to determine how proximity to a large city might influence species presence and abundance. Six lakes were studied in the Southwest Ohio region and identified as urban or rural depending on their distance to the nearest major city of Cincinnati. The count of unique species and number of each species present outside lakes were used to calculate Shannon’s Biodiversity Indices (i.e., abundance and evenness). My hypothesis was that biodiversity differs between urban and rural lakes, with rural lakes displaying a greater biodiversity. William H. Harsha Lake, an urban and the largest lake, exhibited the highest count of unique species (n=31) but there were no large differences in species abundance or species evenness between urban and rural lakes. My study shows the importance of tracking lake biodiversity in Southwest Ohio to better understand the unique influence different human activity has on lake quality.