Neo- and Paleo-Limnological Studies on Diatom and Cladoceran Communities of Subsidence Ponds Affected by Mine Waters (S. Poland)

Abstract

Plankton assemblages can be altered to different degrees by mining. Here, we test how diatoms and cladocerans in ponds along a river in southern Poland respond to the cessation of the long-term Pb-Zn mining. There are two groups of subsidence ponds in the river valley. One of them (DOWN) was contaminated over a period of mining, which ceased in 2009, whereas the other (UP) appeared after the mining had stopped. We used diatoms and cladocerans (complete organisms in plankton and their remains in sediments) to reveal the influence of environmental change on the structure and density of organisms. The water of UP pond was more contaminated by major ions (SO42−, Cl−) and nutrients (NO3−, PO43−) than the DOWN ponds. Inversely, concentrations of Zn, Cd, Cu and Pb were significantly higher in sediment cores of DOWN ponds in comparison to those in the UP pond. Ponds during mining had higher diversity of diatoms and cladocerans than the pond formed after the mining had stopped. CCA showed that diatom and cladoceran communities related most significantly to concentrations of Pb in sediment cores. Comparison of diatom and cladoceran communities in plankton and sediment suggests significant recovery of assemblages in recent years and reduction of the harmful effect of mine-originating heavy metals. Some features of ponds such as the rate of water exchange by river flow and the presence of water plants influenced plankton communities more than the content of dissolved heavy metals.

Cladocera paleocommunity to disentangle the impact of anthropogenic and climatic stressors on a deep subalpine lake ecosystem (Lake Iseo, Italy)

“…Planktonic crustaceans, particularly the cladocerans, are highly sensitive to environmental changes and represent good sentinels to anthropic and climatic impacts (Berthon et al 2014). The Cladocera remains detected in Lake Iseo sediment reflected the species composition and density of modern pelagic Cladocera assemblages (Leoni 2017;Leoni et al 2018a), and this confirms the potential of these biological proxies for paleoecological reconstructions, as previously reported in several studies on different lake types (Milan et al 2017;Pociecha et al 2020). A relation between the principal pelagic species has been pointed out, highlighting that the density of predators, as B. longimanus and L. kindti, is related to the density of their principal prey, Bosminidae and D. longispina.…”

Assessing the potential environmental factors affecting cladoceran assemblage composition in arsenic-contaminated lakes near abandoned silver mines

“…Earlier paleolimnological assessments of mine-impacted lakes have suggested that metal(loid) contamination results in the loss of several pollution-sensitive species and increases in the relative abundances of a few generalist and/or pollution-tolerant taxa, thus leading to lower diversity (Manca and Comoli, 1995;Leppänen et al, 2017a;Winegardner et al, 2017). Toxicity of mining contaminants may explain the decrease in some of the littoral taxa, as the decreases in taxa such as A. nana and the A. circumfimbriata-guttata complex have been reported from other metal-contaminated lakes (Thienpont et al, 2016;Pociecha et al, 2020). However, the pelagic bosminids that replaced these littoral taxa in the contaminated lakes are known to be sensitive to As pollution (Passino and Novak, 1984;Chen et al, 2015).…”

“…have also been used as model organisms in laboratory-based in-vitro experiments to determine the toxicity of environmental contaminants to aquatic biota (Sarma and Nandini, 2006), and therefore Cladocera are often included as biological indicators in environmental monitoring programs of mining operations (Environment Canada, 2012). In addition to the in vitro toxicity studies, in situ examinations of Cladocera from mine-impacted lakes have reported changes in assemblage structure (Leppänen et al, 2017a;Pociecha et al, 2020), with decreases in diversity and richness (Labaj et al, 2015;Winegardner et al,. 2017), and, in extreme cases, functional loss (Thienpont et al, 2016).…”

Spatial Patterns in the Distribution and Diversity of Diploneis Genus-Level Diatoms in the Podlasie Springs (North-Eastern Poland)

“…In Poland, it is known from small streams near Krakow [18] and the rivers and ponds of southern Poland [19].…”

“…Many Diploneis species are only known from restricted geographical areas (e.g., D. burgitensis, D. fontium) [15,16], whereas others, such as D. elliptica, D. fontanella, D. krammeri, D. parapetersenii, and D. separanda, are widely distributed and have defined environmental requirements [16,17]. Diploneis is a common and widespread diatom group in springs, streams, rivers, and lakes in Poland [7,8,18,19].…”