E.T.H.M. Peeters

Creating a safe operating space for iconic ecosystems

Manage local stressors to promote resilience to global change Although some ecosystem responses to climate change are gradual, many ecosystems react in highly nonlinear ways. They show little response until a threshold or tipping point is reached where even a small perturbation may trigger collapse into a state from which recovery is difficult (1). Increasing evidence shows that the critical climate level for such collapse may be altered by conditions that can be managed locally. These synergies between local stressors and climate change provide potential opportunities for proactive management. Although their clarity and scale make such local approaches more conducive to action than global greenhouse gas management, crises in iconic UNESCO World Heritage sites illustrate that such stewardship is at risk of failing.

Benthic macroinvertebrate community structure in relation to food and environmental variables

The relative contribution of sediment food (e.g. organic matter, carbohydrates, proteins, C, N, polyunsaturated fatty acids) and environmental variables (e.g. oxygen, pH, depth, sediment grain size, conductivity) in explaining the observed variation in benthic macroinvertebrates is investigated. Soft bottom sediments, water and benthic macroinvertebrates were sampled in several water systems across The Netherlands. The variance partitioning method is used to quantify the relative contributions of food and environmental variables in structuring the benthic macroinvertebrate community structure.It is assumed that detritivores show a significant relationship with sediment food variables and carnivores and herbivores do not. The results of the variance partitioning method with data sets containing only detritivores, herbivores or carnivores confirm this assumption. This indicates that the variance partitioning method is a useful tool for analyzing the impact of different groups of variables in complex situations. Approximately 45% of the total variation in the macroinvertebrate community structure could be explained by variables included in the analyses. The variance partitioning method shows that sediment food variables contributed significantly to the total variation in the macroinvertebrate dataset. The relative importance of food depends on the intensity of other environmental factors and is lower on broad spatial scales than on smaller scales.The results of the partitioning depend on the selected variables that are included in the analyses. The method becomes problematic in case variables from different groups of variables (e.g. one food variable and one environmental variable) have a high inflation factor and thus are collinear. The choice of the variable that is left out impacts the variance allocated to the different groups of variables.The variance partitioning method was able to detect the spatial scale dependent contribution of food variables in structuring macroinvertebrate communities. This spatial scale dependency can also be caused by the size, the composition, and the heterogeneity of the dataset. Performing extra analyses in which specific samples are removed from the original dataset can give insight in under- or overestimation of the impact of certain factors and offers the possibility to test the robustness of the obtained results.

Avoidance of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon–contaminated sediments by the freshwater invertebrates Gammarus pulex and Asellus aquaticus

Contamination of sediments is a serious problem in most industrialized areas. Sediments are often contaminated with trace metals and organic contaminants like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Bioassays are often used to determine the effect of contaminants on biota. However, survival or growth may not be the most sensitive endpoints. Behavioral changes often occur at much lower concentrations. Our study aimed to assess the effect of PAHs on habitat choice of two common freshwater invertebrates, the amphipod Gammarus pulex and the isopod Asellus aquaticus. We spiked clean field sediment with a mixture of four PAHs, fluoranthene, pyrene, chrysene, and benzo[k]fluoranthene, to a total concentration of 30 mg PAH/kg dry weight. Both species were offered a choice between PAH-spiked sediments and clean sediments in laboratory experiments. Results show that both species avoid PAH-spiked sediment. Origin of the population, either from a clean reference site or from a polluted site, did not affect habitat choice of either species.

Trace metal availability and effects on benthic community structure in floodplain lakes

Effects of contaminants on communities are difficult to assess and poorly understood. We analyzed in situ effects of trace metals and common environmental variables on benthic macroinvertebrate communities in floodplain lakes. Alternative measures of trace metal availability were evaluated, including total metals, metals normalized on organic carbon (OC) or clay, simultaneously extracted metals (SEM), combinations of SEM and acid-volatile sulfide (AVS), and metals accumulated by detritivore invertebrates (Oligochaeta). Accumulated metal concentrations correlated positively with sediment trace metals and negatively with surface water dissolved OC. Sixty-eight percent of the variation in benthic community composition was explained by a combination of 11 environmental variables, including sediment, water, and morphological characteristics with trace metals. Metals explained 2 to 6% of the community composition when SEM-AVS or individual SEM concentrations were regarded. In contrast, total, normalized, and accumulated metals were not significantly linked to community composition. We conclude that examination of SEM or SEM - AVS concentrations is useful for risk assessment of trace metals on the community level.

Development of a feeding behavioural bioassay using the freshwater amphipod Gammarus pulex and the Multispecies Freshwater Biomonitor

The present study reports the development of a feeding behavioural bioassay using the Multispecies Freshwater Biomonitor (MFB). This device is based on the quadruple impedance conversion technique to record online different behaviours of animals. Animal movements in the water generate specific frequencies, and the MFB can estimate the percentage of time producing each frequency (from 0.5 to 8.5 Hz) by means of a stepwise discrete Fourier transformation. Two feeding behavioural bioassays were conducted in order to know the frequencies related to feeding behaviour of the freshwater amphipod Gammarus pulex. The first bioassay assessed the effects of food presence in the amphipod behaviour. The second bioassay assessed the effects of cadmium on the feeding activity (measured as leaf weight loss) and behaviour (swimming, ventilation, and feeding recorded through the MFB) of G. pulex in order to check the suitability of the developed method. The results of the first bioassay showed that the frequencies ranging from 3.0 to 4.5 Hz were highly correlated with feeding activity, especially 3.5 and 4.0 Hz. In the second bioassay, we found that cadmium reduced feeding and ventilation behaviours. Our study showed that the MFB can be used to record the feeding behaviour of G. pulex exposed to toxicants. The developed feeding behavioural bioassay allows an accurate and automatic assessment of several endpoints, including feeding, swimming and ventilation. However, the study of the complex behaviour of G. pulex using the MFB needs further research, since some behaviours seem to generate similar frequencies.

Habitat-mediated cannibalism and microhabitat restriction in the stream invertebrate Gammarus pulex

In cannibalistic species, small individuals often shift habitats to minimize risk of predation by larger conspecifics. The availability of diverse size-structured habitats may mediate the incidence of cannibalism by larger individuals on smaller individuals and increase fitness of smaller individuals. We tested these hypotheses in a series of laboratory studies with Gammarus pulex, a freshwater amphipod inhabiting substrates with varying interstitial pore space sizes. In the absence of larger, potentially cannibalistic individuals, small Gammarus actively used all pore space sizes offered. They used only substrates containing food and preferred food items that provided cover to food items that did not. In the presence of larger G. pulex, small individuals almost exclusively used smaller pore spaces from which larger individuals were excluded. Small individual survival was significantly lower in the presence of larger Gammarus than in controls without larger individuals regardless of substrate size, but availability of mixed pore sizes significantly increased survival. Food consumption and growth per individual were not affected by the presence of larger individuals or substrate composition. Our results suggest that the distribution and availability of complex and high-quality habitats may affect the occurrence and significance of cannibalism in size-structured populations.

Changes in Ventilation and Locomotion of Gammarus pulex (Crustacea, Amphipoda) in Response to Low Concentrations of Pharmaceuticals

ABSTRACT Exposure to contaminants below lethal concentrations may affect the performance of organisms, resulting in measurable differences in behavior. We measured the response of the benthic invertebrate Gammarus pulex (Crustacea, Amphipoda) to sublethal concentrations of three pharmaceuticals, fluoxetine, ibuprofen and carbamazepine, and the cationic surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). Responses in behavior during exposure were analyzed using the multivariate method of Principal Response Curves (PRC). The PRC results show that exposure to low pharmaceutical concentrations (range 1–100 ng/l) resulted in increased ventilation, whereas exposure to control or to high concentrations (1 μ g/l–1 mg/L) resulted in increased locomotion. Exposure to CTAB resulted in decreased locomotion and increased ventilation at increasing concentrations. The results of our experiments indicate that increased ventilation can be used as a general sign of stress, but not necessarily an early warning signal for mortality.

Leaf litter quality drives litter mixing effects through complementary resource use among detritivores.

To comprehend the potential consequences of biodiversity loss on the leaf litter decomposition process, a better understanding of its underlying mechanisms is necessary. Here, we hypothesize that positive litter mixture effects occur via complementary resource use, when litter species complement each other in terms of resource quality for detritivores. To investigate this, monocultures and mixtures of two leaf litter species varying in quality were allowed to decompose with and without a single macro-detritivore species (the terrestrial woodlice Oniscus asellus). Resource quality of the mixture was assessed by the mean concentration, the dissimilarity in absolute and relative concentrations, and the covariance between nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and calcium (Ca) supply. Our results clearly show that litter mixing effects were driven by differences in their resource quality for detritivores. In particular, complementary supply of N and P was a major driver of litter mixing effects. Interestingly, litter mixing effects caused by the addition of woodlice were predominantly driven by N dissimilarity, whereas in their absence, increased P concentration was the main driver of litter mixing effects. These results show that ultimately, litter diversity effects on decomposition may be driven by complementary resource use of the whole decomposer community (i.e., microbes and macro-detritivores).

Sediment pollution and predation affect structure and production of benthic macroinvertebrate communities in the Rhine–Meuse delta, The Netherlands

Abstract Most floodplain sediments of the rivers Rhine and Meuse in The Netherlands are moderately polluted with trace metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and other chemicals. The effects of these sediment-bound contaminants on the productivity of benthic macroinvertebrates are unclear. Sixteen locations along a pollution gradient were investigated in creeks in the Biesbosch floodplain area. Sediment samples were analyzed for bulk sediment characteristics and contaminants (total and bioavailable concentrations of trace metals, PAHs, and PCBs). Exclosures were used to study the effect of predation by fish and birds on macroinvertebrates. Macroinvertebrates were sampled and identified to species level, and production was estimated from biomass increases inside the exclosures during a 1-mo interval in spring. Benthic macroinvertebrate species richness was negatively affected by sediment contamination. Production of oligochaetes and chironomids was not correlated with levels of contamination, but production of gastropods was negatively correlated with contamination. Environmental variables that reflected food availability (seston and sediment organic C) were positively correlated with contamination. Predation significantly reduced invertebrate biomass, but the effects of predation and sediment contamination were not correlated with each other. Our study suggested that the moderate levels of contamination affected the structure but not the productivity of the benthic macroinvertebrate community, probably because of the counteracting effects of contamination and associated surplus of food.

Changing weather conditions and floating plants in temperate drainage ditches

Dominance of free-floating plants such as duckweed is undesirable as it indicates eutrophication. The objectives of this study are to investigate whether the onset of duckweed dominance is related to weather conditions by analysing field observations, to evaluate the effect of different climate scenarios on the timing of duckweed dominance using a model and to evaluate to what extent nutrient levels should be lowered to counteract effects of global warming. To analyse the onset of duckweed dominance in relation to weather conditions, duckweed cover in Dutch ditches was correlated with weather conditions for the period 1980-2005. Furthermore, a model was developed that describes biomass development over time as a function of temperature, light and nutrient availability, crowding and mortality. This model was used to evaluate the effects of climate change scenarios and the effects of lowering nutrients. The onset of duckweed dominance in the field advanced by approximately 14 days with an increase of 1 °C in the average maximum daily winter temperature. The modelled biomass development correlated well with the field observations. Scenarios showed that expected climate change will affect onset and duration of duckweed dominance in temperate ditches. Reducing nutrient levels may counteract the effect of warming. Synthesis and applications. Global warming may lead to an increase in the dominance of free-floating plants in drainage ditches in the Netherlands. The expected reductions in nutrient-loading to surface waters as a result of different measures taken so far are likely not sufficient to counteract these effects of warming. Therefore, additional measures should be taken to avoid a further deterioration of the ecological water quality in ditches.