Search results for "vesiekosysteemit"
showing 10 items of 54 documents
Tracing the fate of microplastic carbon in the aquatic food web by compound-specific isotope analysis
2019
Increasing abundance of microplastics (MP) in marine and freshwaters is currently one of the greatest environmental concerns. Since plastics are fairly resistant to chemical decomposition, breakdown and reutilization of MP carbon complexes requires microbial activity. Currently, only a few microbial isolates have been shown to degrade MPs, and direct measurements of the fate of the MP carbon are still lacking. We used compound-specific isotope analysis to track the fate of fully labelled 13C-polyethylene (PE) MP carbon across the aquatic microbial-animal interface. Isotopic values of respired CO2 and membrane lipids showed that MP carbon was partly mineralized and partly used for cell growt…
Catastrophic effects of sand mining on macroinvertebrates in a large shallow lake with implications for management
2019
Sand mining is a human activity that is increasing in inland waters and has profound effects on entire aquatic ecosystems. However, current knowledge of the effects of sand mining on freshwater lake ecosystems remains limited, especially for biotic communities. Here, we investigated the responses of macroinvertebrates to indiscriminate sand mining in a large shallow lake of China. Our results indicated that sand mining significantly increased the content of suspended particulate matter, total nitrogen, total phosphorus and chlorophyll a in the water column both in the sand mining area and the area adjacent to the dredging activities. While there was significantly lower total nitrogen and th…
Effects of elevated production of autochthonous dissolved organic matter on the freely dissolved concentration of cadmium
2018
Eutrophication enhances the production of autochthonous dissolved organic matter (DOM), which is a major driving factor behind the impairment of many aquatic ecosystems. In a mesocosm study, we investigated the effects of the abundance and composition of DOM on the potential bioavailability of cadmium (Cd) caused by eutrophication, using three-dimensional excitation-emission matrix fluorescence spectroscopy integrated with tangential flow ultrafiltration technology. The complexing capacity of DOM-Cd and the sorption distribution coefficient between DOM and the bulk solution was calculated based on a 1 : 1 complexation model. The fluorescent DOM was decomposed into three components (one prot…
Effect of river restoration on life-history strategies in fish communities
2019
Assessments of river restoration outcomes are mostly based on taxonomic identities of species, which may not be optimal because a direct relationship to river functions remains obscure and results are hardly comparable across biogeographic borders. The use of ecological species trait information instead of taxonomic units may help to overcome these challenges. Abundance data for fish communities were gathered from 134 river restoration projects conducted in Switzerland, Germany and Finland, monitored for up to 15 years. These data were related to a dataset of 22 categories of ecological traits describing fish life-history strategies to assess the outcome of the restoration projects. Restora…
Poor nutritional quality of primary producers and zooplankton driven by eutrophication is mitigated at upper trophic levels
2022
Eutrophication and rising water temperature in freshwaters may increase the total production of a lake while simultaneously reducing the nutritional quality of food web components. We evaluated how cyanobacteria blooms, driven by agricultural eutrophication (in eutrophic Lake Köyliöjärvi) or global warming (in mesotrophic Lake Pyhäjärvi), influence the biomass and structure of phytoplankton, zooplankton, and fish communities. In terms of the nutritional value of food web components, we evaluated changes in the ω-3 and ω-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) of phytoplankton and consumers at different trophic levels. Meanwhile, the lakes did not differ in their biomasses of phytoplankton, zoo…
Contrasting structural complexity differentiate hunting strategy in an ambush apex predator.
2021
AbstractStructural complexity is known to influence prey behaviour, mortality and population structure, but the effects on predators have received less attention. We tested whether contrasting structural complexity in two newly colonised lakes (low structural complexity lake—LSC; high structural complexity—HSC) was associated with contrasting behaviour in an aquatic apex predator, Northern pike (Esox lucius; hereafter pike) present in the lakes. Behaviour of pike was studied with whole-lake acoustic telemetry tracking, supplemented by stable isotope analysis of pike prey utilization and survey fishing data on the prey fish community. Pike displayed increased activity, space use, individual …
Allochthony, fatty acid and mercury trends in muscle of Eurasian perch (Perca fluviatilis) along boreal environmental gradients
2022
Environmental change, including joint effects of increasing dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and total phosphorus (TP) in boreal northern lakes could potentially affects food web energy sources and the biochemical composition of organisms. These environmental stressors are enhanced by anthropogenic land-use and can decrease the quality of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in seston and zooplankton, and therefore, possibly cascading up to fish. In contrast, the content of mercury in fish increases with lake browning potentially amplified by intensive forestry practises. However, there is little evidence on how these environmental stressors simultaneously impact beneficial omega-3 fatty acid …
Comparing the Ecotoxicological Effects of Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) and Perfluorohexanoic Acid (PFHxA) on Freshwater Microbial Community
2022
The ubiquitous presence of perfluorinated carboxylic acids (PFCAs) around the globe has attracted increasing attention, due to their persistency, bioaccumulation, and toxicity. Nevertheless, the ecotoxicological effects of the compounds on aquatic microorganisms has remained understudied. Hence, the present study focused on determining, and comparing, the effects of regulated long-chain PFCA, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), and nonregulated short-chain PFCA, perfluorohexanoic acid (PFHxA), on the diversity, structure, microbial growth, and activity of a freshwater microbial community. In the experiment, lake water was incubated for a period of four weeks at three different concentrations of …
The second life of terrestrial and plastic carbon as nutritionally valuable food for aquatic consumers
2023
Primary production is the basis for energy and biomolecule flow in food webs. Nutritional importance of terrestrial and plastic carbon via mixotrophic algae to upper trophic level is poorly studied. We explored this question by analysing the contribution of osmo- and phagomixotrophic species in boreal lakes and used 13C-labelled materials and compound-specific isotopes to determine biochemical fate of carbon backbone of leaves, lignin–hemicellulose and polystyrene at four-trophic level experiment. Microbes prepared similar amounts of amino acids from leaves and lignin, but four times more membrane lipids from lignin than leaves, and much less from polystyrene. Mixotrophic algae (Cryptomonas…