Progress report on base line heavy metal approach

Vytauto Didžiojo universitetasŽemės ūkio akademij

Nitrogen deposition affects forest floor vegetation across Europe - evidence from long-term monitoring. Oral presentation at International Symposium Ecohydrology, Biotechnology & Engineering, Book of Abstracts (17-19th September 2013 – Łódź)

Chronic nitrogen (N) deposition is a threat to biodiversity that results from eutrophication of sensitive ecosystems. We studied long-term monitoring data from 28 forest sites with a total of 1335 permanent vegetation sampling units from northern Fennoscandia to southern Italy to analyse temporal trends in species cover and diversity. We found that the cover of oligotrophic species decreased the more the measured N deposition exceeded the empirical critical load (CL) for eutrophication effects (p = 0.002). Although species, which prefer nutrient rich sites, did not experience a signifi cantly increasing cover (p = 0.440), they had a higher proportion among colonizers than oligotrophic species (p = 0.030). The observed response is, to our knowledge, the fi rst detection of a N deposition effect on temporal trends of vascular plants of forest fl oor vegetation in a European-wide long-term monitoring data set. Contrary to species cover changes, neither the decrease of species richness (alpha and gamma diversity) nor of homogeneity (beta diversity) correlated with nitrogen CL exceedance in our dataset. We conclude that oligotrophic plant species are on the downgrade in European forest ecosystems that are sensitive to eutrophication effects

Trace metal budgets for forested catchments in Europe – Pb, Cd, Hg, Cu and Zn

Input/output budgets for cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb) and mercury (Hg) in the years 1997 monitored and determined for 14 small forest-covered catchments across Europe as part of the Integrated Monitoring program on the effects of long-range pollutants on ecosystems. Metal inputs were considered to derive from bulk deposition, throughfall and litterfall. Outputs were estimated from run-off values. Litterfall plus throughfall was taken as a measure of the total deposition of Pb and Hg (wet+dry) on the basis of evidence suggesting that, for these metals, internal circulation is negligible. The same is not true for Cd. Excluding a few sites with high discharge, between 74 and 94 % of the input Pb was retained within the catchments; significant Cd retention was also observed. High losses of Pb (>1.4 mgm (>0.15 mgm Central European sites with high water discharge. All other sites had outputs below or equal to 0.36 and 0.06 mgm Almost complete retention of Hg, 86 was reported in the Swedish sites. These high levels of metal retention were maintained even in the face of recent dramatic reductions in pollutant loads.–2011 were−2year−1) and Cd−2year−1) were observed in two mountainous−2year−1, respectively, for the two metals.–99 % of input