ORIGINAL PAPER Using visible near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (VNIRS) of lake sediments to estimate historical changes in cyanobacterial production: potential and challenges Elizabeth J. Favot . Kristopher R. Hadley . Andrew M. Paterson . Neal Michelutti . Susan B. Watson . Arthur Zastepa . Neil J. Hutchinson . Rolf D. Vinebrooke . John P. Smol Received: 17 April 2019 / Accepted: 23 June 2020 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020 Abstract Cyanobacterial blooms areincreasing- worldwide and have negative impacts on aquatic ecosystems and the services they provide to human societies. A lack of long-term environmental monitor- ing data, however, has prevented the development of a baseline perspective against which drivers of the increasing frequency and severity of cyanobacterial blooms can be identified. In this study, we evaluate application of spectroscopy-based models to infer historical trends in cyanobacterial abundance from lake sediment cores. Using an amendment series (n = 15) of a sediment matrix spiked with increasing amounts of mixed cyanobacterial culture from 0 to 50 parts per thousand (%), taxonomically diagnostic carotenoids were measured using visible near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (VNIRS) and conventional but more costly and time-consuming high-perfor- mance liquid chromatography (HPLC). A partial least squares regression model was developed to correlate amendment series VNIR spectra to % of added cyanobacteria. Despite challenges in differentiating carotenoid pigments because of overlapping absorp- tion peaks, applications of the resulting 2-component Elizabeth J. Favot and Kristopher R. Hadley contributed equally to this work. E. J. Favot (&) Á N. Michelutti Á J. P. Smol Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Lab (PEARL), Department of Biology, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada e-mail: liz.favot@gmail.com N. Michelutti e-mail: neal.michelutti@gmail.com J. P. Smol e-mail: smolj@queensu.ca K. R. Hadley Hutchinson Environmental Sciences Ltd., 501 Krug St., Kitchener, ON N2B 1L3, Canada e-mail: Kris.Hadley@environmentalsciences.ca A. M. Paterson Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, Dorset Environmental Science Centre, 1026 Bellwood Acres Road, P.O. Box 39, Dorset, ON P0A 1E0, Canada e-mail: Andrew.Paterson@ontario.ca S. B. Watson Á A. Zastepa Environment and Climate Change Canada, Canada Centre for Inland Waters, 867 Lakeshore Rd., Burlington, ON L7S 1A1, Canada e-mail: jkswatson@shaw.ca A. Zastepa e-mail: arthur.zastepa@canada.ca N. J. Hutchinson Hutchinson Environmental Sciences Ltd., 1-5 Chancery Lane, Bracebridge, ON P1L 2E3, Canada e-mail: Neil.Hutchinson@environmentalsciences.ca 123 J Paleolimnol https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-020-00140-2