| 1. |
- Baho, Didier L., et al.
(författare)
-
A single pulse of diffuse contaminants alters the size distribution of natural phytoplankton communities
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Science of the Total Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0048-9697 .- 1879-1026. ; 683, s. 578-588
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The presence of a multitude of bioactive organic pollutants collectively classified as pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in freshwaters is of concern, considering that ecological assessments of their potential impacts on natural systems are still scarce. In this field experiment we tested whether a single pulse exposure to a mixture of 12 pharmaceuticals and personal care products, which are commonly found in European inland waters, can influence the size distributions of natural lake phytoplankton communities. Size is one of the most influential determinants of community structure and functioning, particularly in planktonic communities and food webs. Using an in-situ microcosm approach, phytoplankton communities in two lakes with different nutrient levels (mesotrophic and eutrophic) were exposed to a concentration gradient of the PPCPs mixture at five levels. We tested whether sub-lethal PPCPs doses affect the scaling of organisms' abundances with their size, and the slope of these size spectra, which describe changes in the abundances of small relative to large phytoplankton. Our results showed that a large proportion (approximately 80%) of the dataset followed a power-law distribution, thus suggesting evidence of scale invariance of abundances, as expected in steady state ecosystems. PPCPs were however found to induce significant changes in the size spectra and community structure of natural phytoplankton assemblages. The two highest treatment levels of PPCPs were associated with decreased abundance of the most dominant size class (nano-phytoplankton: 2-5 mu m), leading to a flattening of the size spectra slope. These results suggest that a pulse exposure to PPCPs induce changes that potentially lead to unsteady ecosystem states and cascading effects in the aquatic food webs, by favoring larger non-edible algae at the expense of small edible species. We propose higher susceptibility due to higher surface to volume ratio in small species as the likely cause of these structural changes.
|
|
| 2. |
- Baho, Didier L., et al.
(författare)
-
Resilience of Natural Phytoplankton Communities to Pulse Disturbances from Micropollutant Exposure and Vertical Mixing
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. - : Wiley. - 0730-7268 .- 1552-8618. ; 38:10, s. 2197-2208
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Freshwaters are increasingly exposed to complex mixtures of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) from municipal wastewater, which are known to alter freshwater communities' structure and functioning. However, their interaction with other disturbances and whether their combined effects can impact ecological resilience (i.e., the ability of a system to tolerate disturbances without altering the system's original structure and processes) remain unexplored. Using in situ mesocosms in 2 lakes with different nutrient levels (mesotrophic and eutrophic), we assessed whether a pulse exposure to sublethal concentrations of 12 PPCPs affects the ecological resilience of natural phytoplankton communities that experienced an abrupt environmental change involving the destabilization of the water column through mixing. Such mixing events are predicted to increase as the effects of climate change unfold, leading to more frequent storms, which disrupt stratification in lakes and force communities to restructure. We assessed their combined effects on community metrics (biomass, species richness, and composition) and their relative resilience using 4 indicators (cross-scale, within-scale, aggregation length, and gap length), inferred from phytoplankton communities by discontinuity analysis. The mixing disturbance alone had negligible effects on the community metrics, but when combined with chemical contaminants significant changes were measured: reducing total biomass, species richness, and altered community composition of phytoplankton. Once these changes occurred, they persisted until the end of the experiment (day 20), when the communities' structures from the 2 highest exposure levels diverged from the controls. The resilience indicators were not affected by PPCPs but differed significantly between lakes, with lower resilience found in the eutrophic lake. Thus, PPCPs can significantly alter community structures and reinforce mechanisms that maintain ecosystems in a degraded state.
|
|
| 3. |
- Creed, Irena F., et al.
(författare)
-
Global change-driven effects on dissolved organic matter composition : Implications for food webs of northern lakes
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 24:8, s. 3692-3714
-
Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Northern ecosystems are experiencing some of the most dramatic impacts of global change on Earth. Rising temperatures, hydrological intensification, changes in atmospheric acid deposition and associated acidification recovery, and changes in vegetative cover are resulting in fundamental changes in terrestrial-aquatic biogeochemical linkages. The effects of global change are readily observed in alterations in the supply of dissolved organic matter (DOM)-the messenger between terrestrial and lake ecosystems-with potentially profound effects on the structure and function of lakes. Northern terrestrial ecosystems contain substantial stores of organic matter and filter or funnel DOM, affecting the timing and magnitude of DOM delivery to surface waters. This terrestrial DOM is processed in streams, rivers, and lakes, ultimately shifting its composition, stoichiometry, and bioavailability. Here, we explore the potential consequences of these global change-driven effects for lake food webs at northern latitudes. Notably, we provide evidence that increased allochthonous DOM supply to lakes is overwhelming increased autochthonous DOM supply that potentially results from earlier ice-out and a longer growing season. Furthermore, we assess the potential implications of this shift for the nutritional quality of autotrophs in terms of their stoichiometry, fatty acid composition, toxin production, and methylmercury concentration, and therefore, contaminant transfer through the food web. We conclude that global change in northern regions leads not only to reduced primary productivity but also to nutritionally poorer lake food webs, with discernible consequences for the trophic web to fish and humans.
|
|
| 4. |
- de Wit, Heleen A., et al.
(författare)
-
Current Browning of Surface Waters Will Be Further Promoted by Wetter Climate
- 2016
-
Ingår i: ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY LETTERS. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 2328-8930. ; 3:12, s. 430-435
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Browning of surface waters because of increasing terrestrial dissolved organic carbon (OC) concentrations is a concern for drinking water providers and can impact land carbon storage. We show that positive trends in OC in 474 streams, lakes, and rivers in boreal and subarctic ecosystems in Norway, Sweden, and Finland between 1990 and 2013 are surprisingly constant across climatic gradients and catchment sizes (median, +1.4% year(-1); interquartile range, +0.8-2.0% year(-1)), implying that water bodies across the entire landscape are browning. The largest trends (median, +1.7% year(-1)) were found in regions impacted by strong reductions in sulfur deposition, while subarctic regions showed the least browning (median, +0.8% year(-1)). In dry regions, precipitation was a strong and positive driver of OC concentrations, declining in strength moving toward high rainfall sites. We estimate that a 10% increase in precipitation will increase mobilization of OC from soils to freshwaters by at least 30%, demonstrating the importance of climate wetting for the carbon cycle. We conclude that upon future increases in precipitation, current browning trends will continue across the entire aquatic continuum, requiring expensive adaptations in drinking water plants, increasing land to sea export of carbon, and impacting aquatic productivity and greenhouse gas emissions.
|
|
| 5. |
- Weyhenmeyer, Gesa A., et al.
(författare)
-
Widespread diminishing anthropogenic effects on calcium in freshwaters
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP. - 2045-2322. ; 9
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Calcium (Ca) is an essential element for almost all living organisms. Here, we examined global variation and controls of freshwater Ca concentrations, using 440 599 water samples from 43 184 inland water sites in 57 countries. We found that the global median Ca concentration was 4.0 mg L-1 with 20.7% of the water samples showing Ca concentrations <= 1.5 mg L-1, a threshold considered critical for the survival of many Ca-demanding organisms. Spatially, freshwater Ca concentrations were strongly and proportionally linked to carbonate alkalinity, with the highest Ca and carbonate alkalinity in waters with a pH around 8.0 and decreasing in concentrations towards lower pH. However, on a temporal scale, by analyzing decadal trends in > 200 water bodies since the 1980s, we observed a frequent decoupling between carbonate alkalinity and Ca concentrations, which we attributed mainly to the influence of anthropogenic acid deposition. As acid deposition has been ameliorated, in many freshwaters carbonate alkalinity concentrations have increased or remained constant, while Ca concentrations have rapidly declined towards or even below pre-industrial conditions as a consequence of recovery from anthropogenic acidification. Thus, a paradoxical outcome of the successful remediation of acid deposition is a globally widespread freshwater Ca concentration decline towards critically low levels for many aquatic organisms.
|
|
| 6. |
- Yu, ChaoQing, et al.
(författare)
-
Managing nitrogen to restore water quality in China
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Nature. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 567:7749, s. 516-520
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The nitrogen cycle has been radically changed by human activities(1). China consumes nearly one third of the world's nitrogen fertilizers. The excessive application of fertilizers(2,3) and increased nitrogen discharge from livestock, domestic and industrial sources have resulted in pervasive water pollution. Quantifying a nitrogen 'boundary'(4) in heterogeneous environments is important for the effective management of local water quality. Here we use a combination of water-quality observations and simulated nitrogen discharge from agricultural and other sources to estimate spatial patterns of nitrogen discharge into water bodies across China from 1955 to 2014. We find that the critical surface-water quality standard (1.0 milligrams of nitrogen per litre) was being exceeded in most provinces by the mid-1980s, and that current rates of anthropogenic nitrogen discharge (14.5 +/- 3.1 megatonnes of nitrogen per year) to fresh water are about 2.7 times the estimated 'safe' nitrogen discharge threshold (5.2 +/- 0.7 megatonnes of nitrogen per year). Current efforts to reduce pollution through wastewater treatment and by improving cropland nitrogen management can partially remedy this situation. Domestic wastewater treatment has helped to reduce net discharge by 0.7 +/- 0.1 megatonnes in 2014, but at high monetary and energy costs. Improved cropland nitrogen management could remove another 2.3 +/- 0.3 megatonnes of nitrogen per year-about 25 per cent of the excess discharge to fresh water. Successfully restoring a clean water environment in China will further require transformational changes to boost the national nutrient recycling rate from its current average of 36 per cent to about 87 per cent, which is a level typical of traditional Chinese agriculture. Although ambitious, such a high level of nitrogen recycling is technologically achievable at an estimated capital cost of approximately 100 billion US dollars and operating costs of 18-29 billion US dollars per year, and could provide co-benefits such as recycled wastewater for crop irrigation and improved environmental quality and ecosystem services.
|
|
