Response of fish communities to multiple pressures: Development of a total anthropogenic pressure intensity index

Sandra Poikane, David Ritterbusch, Christine Argillier, Witold Białokoz, Petr Blabolil, Jan Breine, Nicolaas Jaarsma, Teet Krause, Jan Kubečka, Torben Lauridsen, Peeter Nõges, Graeme Peirson, Tomas Virbickas

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    Abstract

    Lakes in Europe are subject to multiple anthropogenic pressures, such as eutrophication, habitat degradation and introduction of alien species, which are frequently inter-related. Therefore, effective assessment methods addressing multiple pressures are needed. In addition, these systems have to be harmonised (i.e. intercalibrated) to achieve common management objectives across Europe. Assessments of fish communities inform environmental policies on ecological conditions integrating the impacts of multiple pressures. However, the challenge is to ensure consistency in ecological assessments through time, across ecosystem types and across jurisdictional boundaries. To overcome the serious comparability issues between national assessment systems in Europe, a total anthropogenic pressure intensity (TAPI) index wasdeveloped as a weighted combination of the most common pressures in European lakes that is validated against 10 national fish-based water quality assessment systems using data from 556 lakes. Multi-pressure indices showed significantly higher correlations with fish indices than single-pressure indices. The best-performing index combines eutrophication, hydromorphological alterations and human use intensity of lakes. For specific lake types also biological pressures may constitute an important additional pressure. The best-performing index showed a strong correlation with eight national fish-based assessment systems. This
    index can be used in lake management for assessing total anthropogenic pressure on lake ecosystems and creates a benchmark for comparison of fish assessments independent of fish community composition, size structure and
    fishing-gear.We argue that fish-based multiple-pressure assessment tools should be seen as complementary to single-pressure tools offering the major advantage of integrating direct and indirect effects of multiple pressures over
    large scales of space and time.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalScience of the total environment
    Volume586
    Pages (from-to)502-511
    Number of pages10
    ISSN0048-9697
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2017

    Thematic list

    • Policy
    • Environment

    EWI Biomedical sciences

    • B003-ecology

    Taxonomic list

    • fishes (Pisces)

    Policy

    • Water Framework Directive

    Geographic list

    • Central Europe

    Technological

    • evaluation techniques

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