Comparative biodiversity of aquatic habitats in the European agricultural landscape

Davies, Bella; Biggs, Jeremy; Williams, Penny; Whitfield, Mericia; Nicolet, Pascale; Sear, David; Bray, Simon; Maund, Stephen J.

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2007.10.006

Cited by 250 publications

(214 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Considering differences in sampling area, comparable species richness has been reported in European mountain streams without human impact [1,2,4,8,23] including Slovak streams [16]. A slightly higher richness was recorded in Western Europe whereas the lowest species number per sampling site was detected in the Carpathian streams [2,4].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

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Environmental effects on species richness of macrophytes in Slovak streams

et al. 2012

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The effect of 19 environmental variables on species richness of macrophytes was studied in 39 Slovak streams. The studied streams were poor in species; in total, 88 macrophyte taxa were found and the average number of macrophytes per sampling site was 4, ranging from 0 to15. The most frequently occurring macrophytes were filamentous algae (occurrence at 38.6% of sampling sites), followed by Rhynchostegium riparioides (28.4%) and Phalaris arundinacea (19.3%). The strongest environmental gradient in the sampling site detected by factor analysis (factor 1 explains more than 32% variability) is related to the portion of artificial banks, shading by woody vegetation along banks, flexuosity of stream course and the portion of natural land cover in the contact zone of the stream, and can be interpreted as a natural-anthropogenic gradient. The following variables had the highest correlations with species richness of macrophytes: shading by woody vegetation (r=−0.507), portions of artificial bank (r=0.488), flexuosity (r=−0.457) and distance from stream source (r=0.388).

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

“…Streams in Europe are dynamic ecosystems hosting a diverse but relatively species-poor macrophyte vegetation compared to other aquatic habitats, [1,2]. While in ponds, rivers or ditches and also in lowland streams vascular plants prevail, bryophytes represent an important group growing in fast-flowing (sub)mountain streams [3,4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental effects on species richness of macrophytes in Slovak streams

et al. 2012

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“…Ponds in a lowland region of the UK were shown to contribute more species on a regional level than rivers, streams or ditches, although there was considerable variation in richness between individual ponds (Williams et al 2004). The significant contribution made by ponds to the regional species pool gamma diversity has also been demonstrated across Europe (Davies et al 2008). A number of studies have been published on pond species richness and its correlates, although no consensus has emerged on which variables best predict species richness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental correlates of plant and invertebrate species richness in ponds

2011

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Ponds (lentic water bodies <2ha) constitute a considerable biodiversity resource. Understanding the environmental factors that underlie this diversity is important in protecting and managing the habitat. We surveyed 425 ponds for biological and physical characteristics with 78 of those also surveyed for chemical characteristics. A total of 277 invertebrate species and 265 plant species were found. Species richness varied between 2 and 99 (mean 27.2 ± 0.6 SE) for invertebrates and 1 and 58 (mean 20.8 ± 0.4 SE) for plants. Generalised linear models were used to investigate variables that correlate with the species richness of plants and invertebrates, with additional models to investigate insect, Coleoptera, Odonata, Hemiptera, Trichoptera and Mollusca species richness. Models performed well for invertebrates in general (R 2 =39.8%) but varied between lower-order invertebrate taxa (8.2-34.9%). Ponds with lower levels of shading and no history of drying contained higher numbers of species of plants and all invertebrate groups. Aquatic plant coverage positively correlated with species richness in all invertebrate groups apart from Trichoptera and the presence of fish was associated with high invertebrate species richness in all groups apart from Coleoptera. The addition of chemistry variables only increased the explanatory power of the model explaining plant species richness, for which phosphate was a highly significant factor. We demonstrate that the composition of biological communities varies along with their species richness and that less diverse ponds are more variable compared to more diverse ponds. Promoting a high landscape-level pond biodiversity will involve the management of a high diversity of pond types within that landscape.

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“…Davies et al, 2008a, b;Brock et al, 2010a;Biggs and Brown, 2010;Verdonschot, 2012) and streams (e.g. Biggs et al, 2007;Davies et al, 2008a, b;Alonso Prados and Novillo-Villajos, 2010;Biggs and Brown, 2010;Wogram, 2010). These papers, however, do not describe in a comparative way the main differences in physical, chemical and biological properties of the sediment compartment of these systems.…”

Section: Properties Of the Sediment Compartmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific Opinion on the effect assessment for pesticides on sediment organisms in edge‐of‐field surface water

2015

EFS2

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The EFSA Panel on Plant Protection Products and their Residues (PPR Panel) was tasked to revise the Guidance Document (GD) on Aquatic Ecotoxicology under Council Directive 91/414/EEC (SANCO/3268/2001 rev. 4 (final), 17 October 2002. This scientific opinion of the PPR Panel is the second of three requested deliverables within this mandate. The scientific background for the risk assessment on sediment organisms in edge-of-field surface waters is provided, with reference to benthic ecology and ecotoxicology, available test protocols and current knowledge on exposure and effects of sediment-bound plant protection products (PPPs). The scientific opinion provides approaches on how to derive regulatory acceptable concentrations (RACs) for sediment organisms and exposure to active substances of PPPs and transformation products of these substances, and how to link them in a tiered approach to predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) for the sediment compartment. A list of uncertainties in relation to such approaches is given. SUMMARYSediment Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) is a combination of exposure and effect assessment. Proposals for these assessments are provided. The opinion describes specific protection goals (SPGs) for sediment-inhabiting organisms based on two options (1) the ecological threshold option (ETO), accepting negligible population effects only, and (2) if applicable, the ecological recovery option (ERO), accepting some population-level effects if ecological recovery takes place within an acceptable time period.Triggers for sediment ecotoxicity testing are proposed together with a decision scheme for when additional testing may be required. The ecotoxicologically relevant concentrations (ERCs) for sediment organisms are proposed, as this will be influenced by the choice of sediment layer, exposure metric and test duration.The current Forum for the co-ordination of pesticide fate models and their use (FOCUS) methodology for surface water does not consider the effect of multi-year applications, which could possibly lead to accumulation of pesticides in sediment. To account for this deficit, a proposed methodology for introducing an accumulation factor that can be used until an updated FOCUS methodology becomes available is presented in this opinion. The accumulation factor can be considered a conservative approach, since it does not include any possible transport processes, such as leaching or volatilisation, which may reduce the accumulation in sediment in the real field situation.A tiered effect assessment approach is proposed for different sediment organisms and how to link regulatory acceptable concentrations (RACs) to predicted environmental concentration (PECs). The assessment of bioaccumulation, biomagnification and secondary poisoning is discussed, as well as the prospect of improving ERA for sediment microorganisms.Transformation products from active substances also may need to be assessed, as well as mixture toxicity of formulations of plant protection products (PPPs). The op...

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Comparative biodiversity of aquatic habitats in the European agricultural landscape

Cited by 250 publications

References 25 publications

Environmental effects on species richness of macrophytes in Slovak streams

Environmental effects on species richness of macrophytes in Slovak streams

Environmental correlates of plant and invertebrate species richness in ponds

Scientific Opinion on the effect assessment for pesticides on sediment organisms in edge‐of‐field surface water

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