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WISER Deliverable D3.3-2: The importance of invertebrate
spatial and temporal variation for ecological status
classification for European lakes
- Publication date
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- WISER web-site
Abstract
European lakes are affected by many human induced disturbances. In principle, ecological
theories predict that the structure and functioning of benthic invertebrate assemblage (one of
the Biological Quality Elements following the Water Framework Directive, WFD
terminology) change in response to the level of disturbances, making this biological element
suitable for assessing the status and management of lake ecosystems. In practice, to set up
assessment systems based on invertebrates, we need to distiguish community changes that are
related to human pressures from those that are inherent natural variability. This task is
complicated by the fact that invertebrate communities inhabiting the littoral and the profundal
zones of lakes are constrained by different factors and respond unevenly to distinct human
disturbances. For example it is not clear yet how the invertebrates assemblages respond to
watershed and shoreline alterations, nor the relative importance of spatial and temporal
factors on assemblage dynamics and relative bioindicator values of taxa, the habitat
constraints on species traits and other taxonomic and methodological limitations.
The current lack of knowledge of basic features of invertebrate temporal and spatial variations
is limiting the fulfillment of the EU-wide intercalibration of lake ecological quality
assessment systems in Europe, and thus compromising the basis for setting the environmental
objectives as required by the WFD. The aim of this deliverable is to provide a contribution
towards the understanding of basic sources of spatial and temporal variation of lake
invertebrate assemblages. The report is structured around selected case studies, manly
involving the analysis of existing datasets collated within WISER. The case studies come
from different European lake types in the Northern, Central, Alpine and Mediterranean
regions. All chapters have an obvious applied objective and our aim is to provide to those
dealing with WFD implementation at various levels useful information to consider when
designing monitoring programs and / or invertebrate-based classification systems