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Freshwater lakes are essential hotspots for the removal of excessive anthropogenic nitrogen (N) loads transported from the land to coastal oceans. The biogeochemical processes responsible for N removal, the corresponding transformation rates and overall removal efficiencies differ between lakes, however, it is unclear what the main controlling factors are. Here, we investigated the factors that moderate the rates of N removal under contrasting trophic states in two lakes located in central Switzerland. In the eutrophic Lake Baldegg and the oligotrophic Lake Sarnen, we specifically examined seasonal sediment porewater chemistry, organic matter sedimentation rates, as well as 33-year of historic water column data. We find that the eutrophic Lake Baldegg, which contributed to the removal of 20 ± 6.6 gN m −2  year −1 , effectively removed two-thirds of the total areal N load. In stark contrast, the more oligotrophic Lake Sarnen contributed to 3.2 ± 4.2 gN m −2  year −1 , and had removed only one-third of the areal N load. The historic dataset of the eutrophic lake revealed a close linkage between annual loads of dissolved N (DN) and removal rates (NRR = 0.63 × DN load) and a significant correlation of the concentration of bottom water nitrate and removal rates. We further show that the seasonal increase in N removal rates of the eutrophic lake correlated significantly with seasonal oxygen fluxes measured across the water–sediment interface (R 2  = 0.75). We suggest that increasing oxygen enhances sediment mineralization and stimulates nitrification, indirectly enhancing denitrification activity.   Supplementary Information  The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00027-021-00795-7.

Nitrogen removal processes in lakes of different trophic states from on-site measurements and historic data