Nitrogen pollution promotes changes in the niche space of fish communities

Carvalho, Débora Reis de; Sparks, Jed P.; Flecker, Alexander S.; Alves, Carlos Bernardo Mascarenhas; Moreira, Marcelo Zacharias

doi:10.1007/s00442-021-05029-z

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…For example, de Carvalho et al (2019) quantified niche width and overlap of native (Phalloceros uai) and exotic (Poecilia reticulata) guppies in polluted Brazilian waters and found the species exhibited wider isotopic niches but less isotopic niche overlap in polluted compared to unpolluted sites, indicating increased niche segregation in polluted waters. de Carvalho et al (2021) found increases in the isotopic niche width of fish communities in polluted compared to non-polluted sites of the Rio das Velhas basin, Brazil. Whereas, Alonso et al (2019) observed increased overlap of the isotopic niche of Astyanax taeniatus and Astyanax lacustris in polluted waters in Brazil, suggesting niche compression in response to reduced prey diversity.…”

Section: Selected Publicationsmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…Change of diet and/or Assimilation of Sewage/Pollutants (Alonso et al, 2019;de Carvalho et al, 2019;Woodland et al, 2022) Quantify Niche Width Compressed Isotopic Niche Width (Turner et al, 2015;Woodland et al, 2022) Expanded Isotopic Niche Width (de Carvalho et al, 2019(de Carvalho et al, , 2021 Quantify Niche Overlap Decreased Isotopic Niche Overlap de Carvalho et al (2019) Increased Isotopic Niche Overlap Alonso et al (2019) Temperature Use Change in Thermal Occupancy Kelly et al (2017) Frontiers in Environmental Science frontiersin.org (Layman et al, 2007a;Newsome et al, 2007). Understanding isotopic niche overlap may help inform the potential for competitive interactions and resource partitioning that might occur following urban development.…”

Section: Selected Publicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Use of stable isotopes for assessing urbanization impacts on freshwater fishes

Burbank

Drake

Power

2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Continued urban development is inevitable with ongoing human population growth. Urbanization has profound negative impacts on aquatic environments and the organisms that occupy those environments. Urbanization results in habitat stressors including sedimentation, alterations to flow, increases in water temperature, changes in riparian habitat, and changes in the food supply of freshwater systems. In the face of continuing urbanization there is an urgent need to employ effective and practical tools to evaluate the impacts on freshwater fish populations and to better understand the implications of urban development for lotic aquatic ecosystems. Stable isotope analyses (δ13C, δ15N, δ18O δ34S and δ2H) are useful and cost-effective tools that can help highlight and evaluate urbanization impacts on fish populations. Here we review recent developments in stable isotope-based methods for studying urbanization impacts on freshwater fish populations. We identified and review published studies that have implemented stable isotopes to evaluate urban impacts, discuss promising stable isotope-based approaches that have not been commonly applied to the assessment of urban impacts, and highlight the advantages and limitations of the various approaches. In particular, we show how stable isotope analyses can help address both the ecological and physiological impacts of urban development on freshwater fishes in hopes of inspiring more frequent use of the approaches in urbanization studies. We elucidate how stable isotopes can be used to understand the impacts of urbanization on the feeding ecology, habitat and thermal occupancy, and field metabolic rates of freshwater fishes. It was found that stable isotope-based approaches are underutilized to examine the impacts of urbanization on freshwater fishes. We suggest such approaches can be applied more frequently in freshwater environments globally to help assess and actively mitigate the negative impacts of urbanization on freshwater fishes.

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Section: Selected Publicationsmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Selected Publicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of stable isotopes for assessing urbanization impacts on freshwater fishes

Burbank

Drake

Power

2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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“…The mechanism of the pollution-induced fish biodiversity decline might be tightly involved with pollution altering the dietary proportion and trophic level of aquatic organisms, changing the food web structure in this area. Studies have reported that consumption of δ 15 N resources could explain high trophic levels of fish communities that were subjected to water pollution . Due to the slower rate of nitrogen turnover in teleostean tissues, shifts in δ 15 N reflected the degree of nitrogen pollution through human sewage .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Phytoplankton quickly responded to changes in nitrogen concentrations and enriched organic nitrogen via extracellular aminopeptidase within 3 h . However, due to differences in nitrogen metabolism, fish exhibited both intra- and inter-specific variations in the turnover rates over timescales from weeks to months. In the present study, elevations in nitrogen availability driving phytoplankton and detritus exerted bottom-up forces of the aquatic food web through secondary producers, including zooplankton, zoobenthos, shrimp, and forage fish .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To compare the fish biodiversity, the method of stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen was applied to understand the biogeochemical processes associated with fish population dynamics and habitat degradation processes. , The stoichiometric variations of isotopic stable carbon and nitrogen can reflect the nutrient cycling rates and energy flows levels, and thus manifest the variations in the structure and function of aquatic ecosystems. − During the process of element transfer and energy flow, both intra- and inter-species changes in the keystone species of the fish community can irreversibly lead to ecosystem stability and fishery resource sustainability collapse, − thereby disrupting trophic levels of aquatic organism regulation. ,− Furthermore, a reconstruction of the food web can display fish interactions clearly by using carbon and nitrogen isotope technology and further provides benefits for evaluating the impacts of human activities on fish biodiversity alterations. , …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Supporting Evidence for the “Ten-Year Fishing Ban”: Different Modes of Fishing and Pollution Induce a Fish Diversity Decline between the Pearl River and Its Estuary

et al. 2023

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To settle the emerging debate on whether a "ten-year fishing ban" is too long or an annual fishing moratorium is enough for fish resource restoration in the Yangtze River, a long-term comparison between the 1980s and the 2020s in the Pearl River was performed. Significant declines in fish biodiversity were determined among both the Pearl River and its estuary over the past decades. The trophic level increased from 4 to 5 in the estuary, whereas it remained at 4 in the Pearl River. Interestingly, an opposite trend in interspecies networks of fish was observed between the Pearl River and its estuary. A reduced density and increased links were detected in the Pearl River as its interspecies networks became complex, which was in contrast to that in the estuary. Furthermore, fishing and pollution were both confirmed to participate in the fish biodiversity decline in the Pearl River, whereas pollution was the dominant factor inducing the fish biodiversity decline in the estuary. Our case indicated that an annual fishing moratorium is not enough for fish resource restoration and supports the strategy of "ten-year fishing ban". Moreover, pollution should also be brought under control so that we can facilitate fish resource restoration.

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Uncertainty in estimating fish trophic positions and food web structure in highly polluted river basins

Carvalho

Alves

2021

Environ Biol Fish

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Nitrogen pollution promotes changes in the niche space of fish communities

Cited by 9 publications

References 60 publications

Use of stable isotopes for assessing urbanization impacts on freshwater fishes

Use of stable isotopes for assessing urbanization impacts on freshwater fishes

Supporting Evidence for the “Ten-Year Fishing Ban”: Different Modes of Fishing and Pollution Induce a Fish Diversity Decline between the Pearl River and Its Estuary

Uncertainty in estimating fish trophic positions and food web structure in highly polluted river basins

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