Disentangling the effects of low pH and metal mixture toxicity on macroinvertebrate diversity: data sets
Dates
Publication Date
2018-01-11
Start Date
2004-01-01
End Date
2010-10-01
Citation
Schmidt, T.S., Fornaroli, Riccardo, Ippolito, Alessio, Balistrieri, L.S., Tolkkinen, M.J., Mykrä, Heikki, and Muotka, Timo, 2018, Disentangling the effects of low pH and metal mixture toxicity on macroinvertebrate diversity: data sets: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/F7R20ZJW.
Summary
This dataset is comprised of water quality data and benthic macroinvertebrate data collected from basins in Colorado, USA, and Finland. The data includes ancillary water quality characteristics but also a suite of trace metals observed at each site. Also included are modeled outputs that characterize the bioavailability of each trace metal to a biotic ligand. These data were used to explore the importance of metal toxicity and pH as stressors on benthic macroinvertebrates characterized as the number of unique Ephemeroptera + Plecoptera + Trichoptera genera observed at each site. An interpretive summary of the work follows. One of the primary goals of biological assessment of rivers is to identify whether contaminants or other stressors [...]
Summary
This dataset is comprised of water quality data and benthic macroinvertebrate data collected from basins in Colorado, USA, and Finland. The data includes ancillary water quality characteristics but also a suite of trace metals observed at each site. Also included are modeled outputs that characterize the bioavailability of each trace metal to a biotic ligand. These data were used to explore the importance of metal toxicity and pH as stressors on benthic macroinvertebrates characterized as the number of unique Ephemeroptera + Plecoptera + Trichoptera genera observed at each site. An interpretive summary of the work follows. One of the primary goals of biological assessment of rivers is to identify whether contaminants or other stressors limit the ecological potential of running waters. Quantitative relationships between species richness and environmental gradients are useful to better understand biodiversity patterns. Many studies have focused on the effects of pH and high metals concentration on freshwater macroinvertebrate community but, due to data limitation and the lack of tools, the ecological effects of metals mixture in streams are less studied and still unclear. We address an old question: is it the low pH or the metals that are deleterious for stream ecosystems? With new tools, we can achieve improved understanding of the true importance of the two stressors. Our study quantified the limiting effects of pH and chronic metal toxicity for macroinvertebrate community richness. We verified that current environmental quality standards for metals are protective of aquatic biodiversity and proved that pH has a direct limiting effect on richness and it not acts only via modifying the availability and the toxicity of metals. These questions were applied to a dataset spanning two continents and diversity of geologies and ecosystems providing a broad basis for understanding how physico-chemical conditions limit global freshwater biodiversity.
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Related External Resources
Type: Related Primary Publication
Riccardo Fornaroli, Alessio Ippolito, Mari J. Tolkkinen, Heikki Mykrä, Timo Muotka, Laurie S. Balistrieri, Travis S. Schmidt, Disentangling the effects of low pH and metal mixture toxicity on macroinvertebrate diversity, Environmental Pollution, Volume 235, April 2018, Pages 889-898, ISSN 0269-7491, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2017.12.097.
The data were collected to assess the effect of different land use disturbances on water quality and aquatic life. In Colorado, USA, the effect of natural geologic processes was considered as a major determinant of metal bioavailability to aquatic life that is important to consider when assessing risks to aquatic ecosystems associated with mining of different types of mineral deposits. In Finland, similar data were collected at sites that were influenced by different forestry practices. Collectively, the data present characteristics of aquatic ecosystems that are naturally acidic and systems that become acidic once disturbed by different land uses. Here the data were used collectively to differentiate the unique effects of low pH from that of metals on benthic macroinvertebrate communities.
