Using conditional tree forests and life history traits to assess specific risks of stream degradation under multiple pressure scenario

Mondy, Cédric P.; Usseglio‐Polatera, Philippe

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.05.072

Cited by 40 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Further, in 1724 sampling sites distributed across France, risk classes for phosphate and nitrate as well as for nitrogen and habitat degradation exhibited the strongest correlations among the 16 stressors that were assessed (Mondy & Usseglio‐Polatera, ). In contrast to our study, correlations between organic toxicants and nutrients or habitat degradation were very weak (Mondy & Usseglio‐Polatera, ), possibly because concentrations instead of toxicity estimates (e.g. TU) were used in that study to assess risk and risk categories instead of raw data were used in the correlation analyses.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contribution of organic toxicants to multiple stress in river ecosystems

et al. 2016

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SUMMARY1. River ecosystems are threatened by multiple stressors, including habitat degradation, pollution and invasive species. However, freshwater ecologists have largely disregarded the contribution of toxicants to stress in rivers, whereas ecotoxicologists have primarily examined toxicant effects in artificial systems. As a result, there is a paucity of information on the co-occurrence of organic toxicants with other stressors and on the relative importance of toxicants for overall ecological risk in rivers. 2. We used monitoring data for German rivers to analyse the individual and joint occurrence of four stressors: habitat degradation, invasive species, nutrient pollution and organic toxicants. All stressors were examined for ecological risks in terms of whether they exceeded low-and high-risk thresholds derived from published studies and regulatory thresholds. 3. Nutrients and habitat degradation exceeded low and high risk thresholds at c. 85% of the sites and invasive species and organic toxicants at c. 50% of the sites. At least one stressor exceeded thresholds at all sites for which data on all four stressors were available. Toxicity showed weak positive correlations with nutrients and habitat degradation (0.2 < Spearman's q < 0.34, 0.009 < P < 0.08). The risks of ecological effects arising from habitat degradation and invasive species were higher in lowland rivers, particularly for invasive species. 4. Our assessment shows that organic toxicants contribute notably to risks of ecological effects in rivers, to a similar extent as invasive species, although habitat degradation and nutrients are the dominant stressors. Exposure to multiple stressors is the typical situation prevailing in rivers. Consequently, mitigation measures focusing on individual stressors may not be effective at reducing ecological risks. This suggests that integrating concepts and data from freshwater ecology and ecotoxicology is essential to meet the challenge of managing multiple stressors in river ecosystems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contribution of organic toxicants to multiple stress in river ecosystems

et al. 2016

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to highlight environmental changes, anthropogenic disturbances and trophic interactions, an approach based on trait assemblages at the community scale is more efficient than traditional taxonomic methods (Hughes 2000). A trait-based approach can provide an integrative signal of environmental impairment (Mondy and Usseglio-Polatera 2013), and allows reducing variation across ecoregions (Pont et al 2006). Furthermore, prey-predator interactions should be easily highlighted by trait assemblage approaches because predation selection depends more on morphological or behavioral characteristics than on species identity (Green and Côt e 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long‐term trends in trait structure of riverine communities facing predation risk increase and trophic resource decline

Latli

Descy

Mondy

et al. 2017

Ecological Applications

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Many large European rivers have undergone multiple pressures that have strongly impaired ecosystem functioning at different spatial and temporal scales. Global warming and other environmental changes have favored the success of invasive species, deeply modifying the structure of aquatic communities in large rivers. Some exogenous species could alter trophic interactions within assemblages by increasing the predation risk for potential prey species (top-down effect) and limiting the dynamics of others via resource availability limitation (bottom-up effect). Furthermore, large transboundary rivers are complex aquatic ecosystems that have often been poorly investigated so that data for assessing long-term ecological trends are missing. In this study, we propose an original approach for investigating long-term combined effects of global warming, trophic resource decrease, predation risk, and water quality variations on the trait-based structure of macroinvertebrate and fish assemblages over 26 yr (1985-2011) and 427-km stretch of the river Meuse (France and Belgium). The study of temporal variations in biological, physiological, and ecological traits of macroinvertebrate and fish allowed identifying community trends and distinguishing impacts of environmental perturbations from those induced by biological alterations. We provide evidence, for this large European river, of an increase in water temperature (close to 1°C) and a decrease in phytoplankton biomass (-85%), as well as independent effects of these changes on both invertebrate and fish communities. The reduction of trophic resources in the water column by invasive molluscs has dramatically affected the density of omnivorous fish in favor of invertebrate feeders, while scrapers became the major feeding guild among invertebrates. Macroinvertebrate and fish communities have shifted from large-sized organisms with low fecundity to prolific, small-sized organisms, with early maturity, as a response to increased predation pressure.

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“…Nevertheless, a trait-based approach allowed for the derivation of thresholds for pesticides in freshwater ecosystems based on data from different regional studies (Sch€ afer et al, 2012). In addition, ecosystems are subject to multiple stressors concurrently, and traits may help to disentangle effects from different stressors and to study interactions between stressors (Statzner and Bêche, 2010;Moe et al, 2013;Mondy and Usseglio-Polatera, 2013). Moreover, the term pollution comprises different chemicals such as nutrients, inorganic and organic toxicants, which differ in their modes of actions and may consequently differ in their trait responses (Rubach et al, 2010;Swain et al, 2010).…”

Section: Use Of Traits In Studies On Climate Change and Pollutionmentioning

confidence: 99%