Elwira Sienkiewicz
Polish Academy of Sciences
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Featured researches published by Elwira Sienkiewicz.
Journal of Environmental Sciences-china | 2016
Elwira Sienkiewicz; Michał Gąsiorowski
Mountain lakes are usually sensitive to the effects of global and regional environmental changes. Since the second half of the 20th century, surface-water acidification has become a significant ecological problem, and many lakes in Europe and North America have anthropogenically acidified. Additionally, following reduction in emissions of sulfur (S) and nitrogen (N) compounds, recovery from acidification has been observed in many lakes. In this study, we used changes in diatom communities to reconstruct the pH histories based on changes recorded in nine Tatra lakes (Western Carpathians, Poland) since approximately 1850AD. Overall, results indicate that acidic precipitation had little influence on lake-water pH in the Tatra Mountain lakes. Changes in diatom-inferred pH (DI-pH) generally were small and showed little evidence of acidification during the time of the highest air pollution (since the 1960s), and have shown little change since the reduction of acidic deposition since the 1990s. Lakes that showed some evidence of acidification included dystrophic lakes with low acid neutralizing capacity. However, as illustrated by the PCA trajectories of the diatom assemblages, the majority of the lakes currently contain diatom assemblages that are unlike the diatom floras that existed ca. 1850.
Science of The Total Environment | 2019
Michał Gąsiorowski; Elwira Sienkiewicz
Five peat sequences were studied to identify the time the little auk Alle alle colonies originated in the Hornsund area (Spitsbergen). Elemental and stable isotope analysis of nitrogen and carbon was applied as markers for bird activity. The peat sequences were dated with 210Pb and radiocarbon methods. The results showed that peat development related to seabird activity is significantly older (at least 300 years old) in localities closer to the fjords mouth (west) than those located deeper in the fjord (east), which are ~100 years old. Isotopic signals indicated that bird activity in the western localities decreased simultaneously with the growth of the eastern colonies. Colonization by birds of new localities correlated with the termination of the Little Ice Age and the meaningful decrease in the glacier area of the region. Hence, we suggest that the availability of new localities for nesting in talus cones, nival moraines and lateral moraines on gentle mountain slopes with south-eastern exposition attracted the little auk due to better thermal conditions, isolation from strong westerly winds and better protection from predation by gull Larus hyperboreus. The expansion of little auks to the new localities was fast (20-30 yrs), and there are no records of changes in bird impacts on the tundra environment after 1920.
Water Air and Soil Pollution | 2018
Lucia Sochuliaková; Elwira Sienkiewicz; Ladislav Hamerlík; Marek Svitok; Dana Fidlerová; Peter Bitušík
Diatom analysis was undertaken on a 200-year sediment record in an alpine lake (Popradské pleso, Tatra Mountains, Central Europe). Due to its remote character and well-documented human influence since the mid-nineteenth century, it allows a study of the relationship between anthropogenic pressures and diatom assemblages. Altogether, 122 diatom taxa of 40 genera were identified, and two major taxonomic shifts were revealed in the stratigraphic record. The timing of the first significant shift in ~ 1850 precludes the possibility of being caused by direct human activities, since according to historic documents there was neither continuous human presence nor grazing in the valley before that time. In addition, the direct effect of organic pollution early in the 1960s connected with the operation of a tourist hotel was not clearly reflected in the diatom signal. The diatom-inferred total phosphorus (DI-TP) reconstruction indicated the highest TP content well before the most direct wastewater pollution from a newly built hotel. There was a considerable effect of climate to diatom assemblage structure as well as diatom life forms. Our results suggest that direct organic pollution influenced the diatom communities less than expected, and the main driver of change was climate warming. We hypothesize that it is because of the short residence time of the lake, since it has both strong inlet and outlet, and it has been showed that the inlet had significant effect on benthic communities in the past. At the same time, fish manipulation could have been the reason for some fluctuation in DI-TP unrelated to climate and organic pollution.
Science of The Total Environment | 2010
Michał Gasiorowski; Elwira Sienkiewicz
Science of The Total Environment | 2006
Elwira Sienkiewicz; Michał Gąsiorowski; Helena Hercman
Journal of Paleolimnology | 2009
Joanna Mirosław-Grabowska; Monika Niska; Elwira Sienkiewicz
Acta Geologica Polonica | 2005
Michał Zatoń; Agnieszka Piechota; Elwira Sienkiewicz
Science of The Total Environment | 2016
Elwira Sienkiewicz; Michał Gąsiorowski
Water Air and Soil Pollution | 2013
Michał Gąsiorowski; Elwira Sienkiewicz
Journal of Paleolimnology | 2010
Michał Gąsiorowski; Elwira Sienkiewicz