For 17 years, scientists deliberately made a remote Canadian lake more acidic to understand what acid rain was doing to freshwater ecosystems. The experiment ended more than three decades ago, and Lake 223’s water chemistry has since moved back toward its original state.
But the living system inside the lake tells a different story. The lake trout population remains below half of what it was before the experiment, while surviving fish are growing more slowly. Scientists are now studying whether rebuilding a damaged food web can help the ecosystem recover.
