Figure 1.

Satellite images of the study sites in the Inner Mongolian Plateau of China (from http://www.maps.google.com). (A) Northeast China, showing the location of the five lakes. Grey dashed line shows the current northern limit of the East Asian summer monsoon. (B) Lake Dalinor basin showing the connected lakes and the 19 sampling sites in the three lakes, and 5 sampling sites among the five rivers. (C) Lake Chagannur showing three sampling sites. (D) Lake Daihai showing 12 sampling sites in the lake, and 1 sampling site in one of its upstream rivers. White arrows show the waterflow directions of the rivers.