Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Hydrologie

The toxic effect of copper on phytoplankton production is investigated in waters having different complexing capacities. It is demonstrated that a water’s complexing capacity does not guarantee that an equivalent amount of copper could be tolerated without adversely affecting algal production. Possible explanations for these findings are offered and discussed. It is deduced that ionic copper probably is already toxic to planktonic algae at concentrations of about 10−10 mole/l.

Lake Constance whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus wartmanni) spawn in the water column. The demersal eggs develop at the mud-water interface at depths down to 250 m. Samples were taken by dredging areas of 100 m2. Mortality, developmental stages and rate of malformations were determined. Incubation period lasts roughly from December to March. The percentage of dead eggs increased from 52% in January to 74% in February. Among living eggs deformations of the trunk raised from 4% to 31% during the same time. It is assumed that larvae with anomalities of the trunk will have no survival chances. Total losses were 91.7% in the average of all samples.

Replacement of riparian vegetation by pasture has occurred worldwide and is predicted to have strong effects on macroinvertebrate community structure and function in streams, but this has rarely been examined. In this study, leaf processing and macroinvertebrate community structure were examined in a single stream using experimental leaf-packs and surveys of natural leaf-packs. Two sites in each of three land use categories were selected to represent reaches in forest, pasture and forest-pasture boundary regions. In two experiments using tethered leaf-packs, no differences were found in mean leaf breakdown between land use types. However, shredding invertebrates were absent from the pasture sites, so leaf breakdown in pasture resulted from chemical, physical and microbial processes only. Amounts of fine particulate organic matter in experimental leaf-packs were higher in pasture reaches than the forest and boundary reaches but did not influence leaf breakdown. Macroinvertebrate species richness did not differ between land uses. A predictive model developed for species richness and total abundance enabled direct comparison of assemblages on experimental packs to natural leaf-packs. In the forest reach and at the forest-pasture boundary, macroinvertebrate species richness and total abundance increased proportionally with the number of leaves within a pack, but this relationship was not observed in the pasture reach. Pasture land use on Skenes Creek was therefore associated with weakened relationships between allochthonous inputs and macroinvertebrate communities, but this did not alter leaf breakdown.

Urban stormwater runoff discharged through sewer systems into streams causes flush spills of water and pollutants in the receiving water. To make the right decisions in future plannings of the very costly rehabilitation of sewer systems, a solid ecological data base on the critical parameters of sewer overflows is badly needed. Therefore, we designed a laboratory flume which was operated in circular flow mode (to ensure adaptation of the test organisms) and in flow-through mode during the simulation of sewer overflows (to allow a proper evaluation of population loss by drift). Examples on the behaviour during the adaptation phase and the population loss during the exposure to flush spills of water and/or a mixture of sewage and clean water of a benthic invertebrate (Gammarus pulex) demonstrate the potential of the flume to identify critical parameters of sewer overflows at “quasireal-world-conditions”. We found clear evidence for synergetic effects since the exposure to high flow and sewage caused higher population loss ofGammarus than the sum of population loss at exposure to only high flow or only sewage. Population loss considerably depended on the availability of refugial space: if the interstices of the gravel in the flume were silted, this loss was higher than at open interstices. Only ten minutes of movement of the material forming the flume bottom reduced the population ofGammarus to about 60 or 50% of its initial size. Hence, our data strongly suggest that the characteristics of the receiving stream (refugial space, bed stability) play an important role for the potential ecological impact of a sewer overflow. Changes of stream morphology and/or creation of refugial space plus an appropriate technical solution for overflow treatment may be less costly and more effective than a large-scale technical project. Thus, the stream itself should be a major element in future management decisions.

North and Central America has a combined total of 2.5 million km2 of wetlands, with 51 % in Canada, 46 % in the USA, and the remainder in subtropical and tropical Mexico and Central America. Loss rates are well known for the conterminous USA and for parts of Canada but poorly understood for Mexico and Central America. Wetlands of North America continue to be threatened due to drainage for agriculture and urban development, extreme coastal and river management, water pollution from upstream watersheds, peat mining, waterfowl management, and more recently climate change. Human use of wetlands in this region are many, including receiving ecosystem services such as water purification, flood regulation, climate regulation, and direct provisioning benefits for many cultures living in and among wetlands, especially in the Louisiana Delta and in Mexico and Central America. Climate change affects will cause wetland impacts on coastal wetlands due to sea level rise and on inland wetlands due to changes in precipitation, air temperature, and river discharges. Wetlands, in turn, have a major role in the storage of carbon in boreal regions of Canada and with carbon sequestration in temperate and tropical wetlands of the Americas.

Theories that link plant strategies and abiotic filters discriminate between three strategies: competitive, ruderal or stress-tolerant species, and suggest that functional diversity is higher at intermediate values along the gradients of productivity and disturbance. The mechanism by which abiotic filters screen plant traits in aquatic plant communities has been poorly tested and has led to contrasting results. The present study aimed to test whether functional diversity and abundance of life-history traits corresponding to morphology, fecundity and longevity of aquatic plants were linked to disturbance and productivity. Fifty-nine shallow lakes that were arranged along a gradient of productivity (estimated through total phosphorus concentration) and drought-disturbance frequency were sampled for aquatic plants. Species traits were documented and functional diversity was calculated (richness, dispersion and evenness) for each lake. Increasing total phosphorus concentration was associated with decreased functional richness and dispersion but not functional evenness. Functional diversity did not differ according to disturbance frequency, regardless of the index that was measured. High productivity favoured floating species with storage organs and vegetative reproduction, especially at low disturbance frequency. For all disturbance frequencies, low productivity favoured small species without storage organs and sexual reproduction. The present study partly supports the theoretical model. At high productivity levels, because phytoplankton is a better competitor for light than aquatic plants, plant traits are screened stringently, and species with traits that allow them to reach the photic zone are selected.

A method allowing isolation of phytoplancton algae for unialgal cultures is briefly described. Advantages and limits of the method are discussed.