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Environmental context determines pollution impacts on ecosystem functioning

Publiceringsår

2023

Upphovspersoner

Burdon, Francis J.; Reyes, Marta; Schönenberger, Urs; Räsänen, Katja; Tiegs, Scott D.; Eggen, Rik I. L.; Stamm, Christian

Abstrakt

Global change assessments have typically ignored synthetic chemical pollution, despite the rapid increase of pharmaceuticals, pesticides and industrial chemicals in the environment. Part of the problem reflects the multifarious origins of these micropollutants, which can derive from urban and agricultural sources. Understanding how micropollutants harm ecosystems is a major scientific challenge due to asymmetries of stress across trophic levels and ecological surprises generated by multiple drivers interacting in human-impacted landscapes. We used field assays above and below municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in 60 sampling locations across 20 Swiss streams to test how micropollutants and nutrients originating from WWTPs affect two trophic levels (microbes and detritivores) and their role in leaf litter processing. Wastewater impacts were asymmetric across trophic levels, with the detritivore contribution declining relative to microbial-driven decomposition. The strength of negative impacts were context dependent, peaking at sites with the highest upstream abundances of detritivorous invertebrates. Diffuse pollution from intensive agriculture and wastewater-born micropollutants contributed to reduced litter processing rates, including indirect effects apparently mediated through negative influences of insecticides on detritivores. Asymmetries in stress responses across trophic levels can introduce quantitative changes in consumer–resource dynamics and leaf litter processing. This means functional redundancies at different trophic levels are insufficient to compensate for biodiversity losses, causing environmental stressors such as chemical pollutants to have pervasive ecosystem-level impacts.
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Organisationer och upphovspersoner

Jyväskylä universitet

Räsänen Katja Orcid -palvelun logo

Publikationstyp

Publikationsform

Artikel

Moderpublikationens typ

Tidning

Artikelstyp

En originalartikel

Målgrupp

Vetenskaplig

Kollegialt utvärderad

Kollegialt utvärderad

UKM:s publikationstyp

A1 Originalartikel i en vetenskaplig tidskrift

Publikationskanalens uppgifter

Journal

Oikos

Förläggare

Wiley

Volym

2023

Nummer

2

Artikelnummer

e09131

Publikationsforum

64377

Publikationsforumsnivå

2

Öppen tillgång

Öppen tillgänglighet i förläggarens tjänst

Ja

Öppen tillgång till publikationskanalen

Delvis öppen publikationskanal

Parallellsparad

Ja

Övriga uppgifter

Vetenskapsområden

Miljövetenskap; Ekologi, evolutionsbiologi

Nyckelord

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Publiceringsland

Förenade kungariket

Förlagets internationalitet

Internationell

Språk

engelska

Internationell sampublikation

Ja

Sampublikation med ett företag

Nej

DOI

10.1111/oik.09131

Publikationen ingår i undervisnings- och kulturministeriets datainsamling

Ja