Panarchy suggests why management mitigates rather than restores ecosystems from anthropogenic impact

Panarchy, a model of dynamic systems change at multiple, interconnected spatiotemporal scales, allows assessing whether management influences ecological processes and resilience. We assessed whether liming, a management action to counteract anthropogenic acidification, influenced scale-specific temporal fluctuation frequencies of benthic invertebrates and phytoplankton assemblages in lakes. We also tested whether these fluctuations correlated with proxies of liming (Ca:Mg ratios) to quantify scale-specific management effects. Using an ecosystem experiment and monitoring data, time series analyses (1998-2019) revealed significant multiscale temporal (and thus panarchy) structure for littoral invertebrates across limed and reference lakes. Such patterns were inconsistent for sublittoral invertebrates and phytoplankton. When significant panarchy structure was found, Ca:Mg ratios correlated with only a few of the identified temporal fluctuation frequencies across limed and reference lakes. This suggests that liming effects become diluted in the managed lakes. The lack of manifestations of liming across the independent temporal fluctuation patterns suggest that this lake management form fails to create and enforce cross-scale interactions, a crucial component of ecological resilience. This interpretation supports liming as a mitigation effort rather than a tool to restore acidified lakes to a self-organizing system equivalent of circumneutral references.

Spatiotemporal variability in Swedish lake ecosystems

Studying ecosystem dynamics is critical to monitoring and managing linked systems of humans and nature. Due to the growth of tools and techniques for collecting data, information on the condition of these systems is more widely available. While there are a variety of approaches for mining and assessing data, there is a need for methods to detect latent characteristics in ecosystems linked to temporal and spatial patterns of change. Resilience-based approaches have been effective at not only identifying environmental change but also providing warning in advance of critical transitions in social-ecological systems (SES). In this study, we examine the usefulness of one such method, Fisher Information (FI) for spatiotemporal analysis. FI is used to assess patterns in data and has been established as an effective tool for capturing complex system dynamics to include regimes and regime shifts. We employed FI to assess the biophysical condition of eighty-five Swedish lakes from 1996–2018. Results showed that FI captured spatiotemporal changes in the Swedish lakes and identified distinct spatial patterns above and below the Limes Norrlandicus, a hard ecotone boundary which separates northern and southern ecoregions in Sweden. Further, it revealed that spatial variance changed approaching this boundary. Our results demonstrate the utility of this resilience-based approach for spatiotemporal and spatial regimes analyses linked to monitoring and managing critical watersheds and waterbodies impacted by accelerating environmental change.

Assessing anthropogenic impact on boreal lakes with historical fish species distribution data and hydrogeochemical modeling

Quantifying the effects of human activity on the natural environment is dependent on credible estimates of reference conditions to define the state of the environment before the onset of adverse human impacts. In Europe, emission controls that aimed at restoring ecological status were based on hindcasts from process-based models or paleolimnological reconstructions. For instance, 1860 is used in Europe as the target for restoration from acidification concerning biological and chemical parameters. A more practical problem is that the historical states of ecosystems and their function cannot be observed directly. Therefore, we (i) compare estimates of acidification based on long-term observations of roach (Rutilus rutilus) populations with hindcast pH from the hydrogeochemical model MAGIC; (ii) discuss policy implications and possible scope for use of long-term archival data for assessing human impacts on the natural environment and (iii) present a novel conceptual model for interpreting the importance of physico-chemical and ecological deviations from reference conditions. Of the 85 lakes studied, 78 were coherently classified by both methods. In 1980, 28 lakes were classified as acidified with the MAGIC model, however, roach was present in 14 of these. In 2010, MAGIC predicted chemical recovery in 50% of the lakes, however roach only recolonized in five lakes after 1990, showing a lag between chemical and biological recovery. Our study is the first study of its kind to use long-term archival biological data in concert with hydrogeochemical modeling for regional assessments of anthropogenic acidification. Based on our results, we show how the conceptual model can be used to understand and prioritize management of physico-chemical and ecological effects of anthropogenic stressors on surface water quality.

Challenges in assessing biological recovery from acidification in Swedish lakes

Since the 1980s, Swedish lakes have in general become less acidified. Assessment of biological recovery is, however, hampered by poor pre-acidification data, confounding effects of climate change, and few lakes with annual sampling of fish and other organisms. Only three critically acidified, but non-limed, lakes had two decades of fish monitoring. The lakes had not yet recovered to pre-industrial chemical targets. Fish had low species richness compared to other organism groups. Roach (Rutilus rutilus) and/or European perch (Perca fluviatilis) were the dominant fish species, and the acid-sensitive roach had been lost from one of the lakes. Calcium decreased, possibly approaching pre-acidification concentrations, but exceeded minimum levels needed to sustain some Daphnia species. High or increasing levels of total organic carbon, likely due to reduced acidification and climate change, might influence the biological communities in unexpected ways, for example, facilitating more frequent occurrence of the invasive algae Gonyostomum semen.

Assessing and managing freshwater ecosystems vulnerable to environmental change

Freshwater ecosystems are important for global biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem services. There is consensus in the scientific literature that freshwater ecosystems are vulnerable to the impacts of environmental change, which may trigger irreversible regime shifts upon which biodiversity and ecosystem services may be lost. There are profound uncertainties regarding the management and assessment of the vulnerability of freshwater ecosystems to environmental change. Quantitative approaches are needed to reduce this uncertainty. We describe available statistical and modeling approaches along with case studies that demonstrate how resilience theory can be applied to aid decision-making in natural resources management. We highlight especially how long-term monitoring efforts combined with ecological theory can provide a novel nexus between ecological impact assessment and management, and the quantification of systemic vulnerability and thus the resilience of ecosystems to environmental change.

Response of Gammarus pulex and Baetis rhodani to springtime acid episodes in humic brooks

While chronic acidification of water bodies has been steadily decreasing, episodic acidification continues to affect stream biology by temporarily decreasing pH and mobilizing aluminum. These events are becoming more common as climate change renders more frequent and intense storms and flooding. Throughout Scandinavia, the effects of acidification have been mitigated by liming since the 1980s, but remediation efforts can now be reduced. While transient acidity may reduce fish populations, also other species in streams are affected. In this in-stream study, two macro-invertebrates (Gammarus pulex and Baetis rhodani), both known as salmonid prey organisms, were exposed to snowmelt in six humic brooks with a natural gradient of pH and inorganic monomeric Al (Al(i)). We hypothesize that acid toxicity thresholds can be defined using lethal (mortality) and sublethal (changes in body elemental content) metrics. Periodic observations were made of mortality and whole body concentrations of base cations (BC: Ca, Mg, Na and K) and metals (Al, Fe, Zn and Mn). Mortality increased dramatically at pH<6.0 and Al(i)>15 μg/L for G. pulex and at pH<5.7 and Al(i)>20 μg/L for B. rhodani. No accumulation of Al was found. The invertebrate body Na concentration decreased when pH dropped, suggesting that osmoregulation in both species was affected. In contrast to general BC pattern, Ca concentration in G. pulex and Mg concentration in B. rhodani increased when pH decreased. Although Al(i) strongly correlates to pH, the Al composition of soil and bedrock also influences Al availability, potentially contributing to toxic Al(i) episodes. The estimated values calculated in this study can be used to improve water quality criteria and as thresholds to adjust doses of lime compared to old recommendations in ongoing liming programs. Such adjustments may be critical since both Al(i) and pH levels have to be balanced to mitigate damage to recovering stream ecosystems.

Long-term amelioration of acidity accelerates decomposition in headwater streams

The secondary production of culturally acidified streams is low, with a few species of generalist detritivores dominating invertebrate assemblages, while decomposition processes are impaired. In a series of lowland headwater streams in southern England, we measured the rate of cellulolytic decomposition and compared it with values measured three decades ago, when anthropogenic acidification was at its peak. We hypothesized that, if acidity has indeed ameliorated, the rate of decomposition will have accelerated, thus potentially supporting greater secondary production and the longer food chains that have been observed in some well-studied recovering freshwater systems. We used cellulose Shirley test cloth as a standardized bioassay to measure the rate of cellulolytic decomposition, via loss in tensile strength, for 31 streams in the Ashdown Forest over 7 days in summer 2011 and 49 days in winter 2012. We compared this with data from an otherwise identical study conducted in 1978 and 1979. In a secondary study, we determined whether decomposition followed a linear or logarithmic decay and, as Shirley cloth is no longer available, we tested an alternative in the form of readily available calico. Overall mean pH had increased markedly over the 32 years between the studies (from 6.0 to 6.7). In both the previous and contemporary studies, the relationship between decomposition and pH was strongest in winter, when pH reaches a seasonal minimum. As in the late 1970s, there was no relationship in 2011/2012 between pH and decay rate in summer. As postulated, decomposition in winter was significantly faster in 2011/2012 than in 1978/1979, with an average increase in decay rate of 18.1%. Recovery from acidification, due to decreased acidifying emissions and deposition, has led to an increase in the rate of cellulolytic decomposition. This response in a critical ecosystem process offers a potential explanation of one aspect of the limited biological recovery that has been observed so far, an increase in larger bodied predators including fish, which in turn leads to an increase in the length of food chains.

Tracing α, β, and γ diversity responses to environmental change in boreal lakes

Boreal lakes undergo broad-scale environmental change over time, but biodiversity responses to these changes, particularly at macroecological scales, are not well known. We studied long-term trends (1992-2009) of environmental variables and assessed α, β, and γ diversity responses of phytoplankton and littoral invertebrates to these changes. Diversity was assessed based on taxon richness ("richness") and the exponentiated Shannon entropy ("diversity"). Almost all environmental variables underwent significant monotonic change over time, indicating mainly decreasing acidification, water clarity and nutrient concentrations in the lakes. These variables explained about 54 and 38% of variance in regression models of invertebrates and phytoplankton, respectively. Despite this, most diversity-related variables fluctuated around a long-term mean. Only α and γ richness and diversity of invertebrates increased monotonically through time, and these patterns correlated significantly with local and regional abundances. Results suggest that biodiversity in boreal lakes is currently stable, with no evidence of regional biotic homogenization or local diversity loss. Results also show that richness trends between phytoplankton and invertebrates were widely uncorrelated, and the same was found for diversity trends. Also, within each taxonomic group, temporal patterns of richness and diversity were largely uncorrelated with each other. From an applied perspective, this suggest that long-term trends of biodiversity in boreal lakes at a macroecological scale cannot be accurately assessed without multiple lines of evidence, i.e. through the use of multiple taxa and diversity-related variables in the analyses.

Temporal scales and patterns of invertebrate biodiversity dynamics in boreal lakes recovering from acidification

Despite international policy implementation to reduce atmospheric acid deposition and restore natural resources from cultural acidification, evidence of ecological recovery is equivocal. Failure to meet recovery goals means that acidification still threatens biodiversity in many areas of the world. Managers thus need information to manage biodiversity, especially its components that are sensitive to stress (acid-sensitive taxa). We analyzed 20-year time series (1988-2007) of water quality and littoral invertebrates in acidified and circum-neutral lakes across Sweden to evaluate regional biodiversity dynamics and the extent to which changes in water quality affect these dynamics. We used multivariate time series modeling to (1) test how individual species groups within invertebrate communities track changes in the abiotic environment and (2) reveal congruencies of taxon contributions to species group change across lakes. Chemical recovery in the lakes was equivocal, and increases of pH and alkalinity were observed in subsets of acidified and circum-neutral lakes. Time series analyses revealed two different patterns of species groups for invertebrate communities across lakes; the first species group showed monotonic change over time, while the second group showed fluctuating temporal patterns. These independent species groups correlated distinctly with different sets of environmental variables. Recovery of pH and alkalinity status was associated with species group patterns only in a few lakes, highlighting an overall weak recovery of invertebrate species. The sets of species, including acid-sensitive taxa, composing these species groups differed markedly across lakes, highlighting context-specific responses of invertebrates to environmental variation. These results are encouraging because disparate local-scale dynamics maintain the diversity of sensitive invertebrate species on a regional scale, despite persisting acidification problems. Our study can inform and help refine current acidification-related policy focused on sensitive biodiversity elements.

Long-term changes in river-floodplain dynamics: implications for salmonid habitat in the Interior Columbia Basin, USA

Rivers and their associated floodplains are among the world's most highly altered ecosystems, resulting in billions of dollars in restoration expenditures. Successful restoration of these systems requires information at multiple spatial scales (from localized reaches to broader-scale watersheds), as well as information spanning long time frames. Here, we develop a suite of historical landscape indicators of riverine status, primarily from the perspective of salmonid management, using a case study in the Interior Columbia Basin, Washington, USA. We use a combination of historical and modern aerial photography to quantify changes in land cover and reach type, as well as potential fish habitat within channel and off-channel floodplain areas. As of 1949, 55% of the Wenatchee River floodplain had been converted to agriculture. By 2006, 62% had been modified by anthropogenic development, of which 20% was due to urban expansion. The historical percentage of agricultural land in the watershed and the contemporary percentage of urban area surpass thresholds in land cover associated with deleterious impacts on river systems. In addition, the abundance of reach types associated with the highest quality salmonid habitat (island braided and meandering reaches) has declined due to conversion to straight reach types. The area occupied by fish habitats associated with channel migration (slow/stagnant channels and dry channels) has declined approximately 25-30%. Along highly modified rivers, these habitats have also become increasingly fragmented. Caveats related to visual quality and seasonal timing of historical photographs were important considerations in the interpretation of changes witnessed for headwater island braided systems, as well as for floodplain ponds. Development of rigorous, long-term, multi-scale monitoring techniques is necessary to guide the management and restoration of river-floodplain systems for the diversity of ecosystem services they provide.