Workshop on Alien Species and the EC WFD Ispra, Italy, 17-18 June 2009

Assessing the biological contamination and biological pollution risk in aquatic ecosystems: cost-effective indicators

Kęstutis Arbačiauskas

Institute of Ecology, Vilnius UniversityLithuania

http://www.alarmproject.net/alarm/

Settele et al. 2005

Objective: to develop and test risk assessment protocols for invasive alien species introductions via European inland waterways

EC contribution in 2007-2009: >500 000 Euro

ALARM aquatic group (bioinvasions module) :

Formal project partners:1 - St. Petersburg State University, Russia 2 - Klaipeda University, Lithuania3 - Marine Organism Investigations, Ireland4 - Institute of Zoology NAS, Belarus5 - Odessa Branch of the Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas, Ukraine6 - Institute for Biological Research “Sinisa Stankovic”, University of Belgrade, Serbia7 - Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain

Associated partners: 8 - Environmental Services Ireland 9 - Institute of Ecology of Vilnius University, Lithuania10 - University of Łódź, Poland11 - Southern Scientific Center RAS, Russia

Other partners:12 - CEFAS, UK13 - Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands14 - AeT umweltplanung, Koblenz, Germany15 - Institute of Problems of Ecology and Evolution RAS, Russia

European inland water invasion corridors/network

Panov et al. 2009

Driving forces–Pressures–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR) framework was used to structure environmental indicators in the socio-economic context

DPSIR ‘State’ - Biological contamination

The presence of AS regardless of their abilities to cause

negative ecological and/or socio-economic impacts.Requirements for indicators:

1. Simple and suitable for routine monitoring data;2. Having biological sense;3. Free of expert judgement;4. Preferably practical for statistical analysis (continuous).

Environmental indicators:1. Biological contamination level (BCL) - number of established alien species in AU (since 1900);2. Site-specific Biological Contamination index (SBC index);

3. Integrated Biological Contamination index for AU (IBC index).

Site-specific Biological Contamination indexderived from two metrics (Arbačiauskas et al. 2008) :

Abundance contamination index (ACI) measures the community dominance by aliens, and is calculated as the proportion of specimens of AS in a community.

Ordinal richness contamination index (RCI) measures the impact of AS on community structural organization, i.e. disparity contamination, and is calculated as the proportionof alien orders within a community.

With values of ACI and RCI, the site-specific biocontamination index is derived from matrix, as follows, and gives 5 classes: 0, No biocontamination, blue cell; 1, Low biocontamination, green cell; 2, Moderate biocontamination, yellow cells; 3, High biocontamination, orange cells; 4, Severe biocontamination, red cells , which correspond to High, Good, Moderate, Poor and Bad status, respectively.

Temporal (A) and spatial (B, C) trends of abundance contamination (ACI) and ordinal richness contamination (TCI) ranks in the Rhine River Delta (A), the Nemunas River (B) and the Pripyat River and Pripyat–Bug Canal (C), respectively. Study sites in (B) and (C) are arranged in upstream-downstream direction indicated by horizontal arrow Vertical arrows in (C) indicate river ports.

Single AS may cause high ACI.

Biocontamination and ecological status estimatedby BMWP scores are negatively correlated (partial correlations for ACI and RCI were 0.36 and 0.62,correspondingly) .

Biocontamination of Lithuania lakes due to introduction of Ponto-Caspian peracaridan species .

Arbačiauskas et al. 2008

Integrated Biological Contamination index can be evaluated by averaging RCI and ACI of study sites (within the assessment unit)and ranking using the same matrix.

Integrated biocontamination of selected Assessment Unitswithin European inland waterways

Conclusions:

1. Site-specific and integrated biological contamination indices are cost-effective indicators of the presence of aliens in aquatic ecosystems which can be applied to data collected during routine water quality monitoring.

2. The quality status with respect to biocontamination and water physico-chemical or hydromorphological indicators may substantially differ. The water body status, with respect to biocontamination, is probably more appropriately defined as biological quality status (level of nativeness).

3. A specification of methods for water and hydromorphological quality assessment considering the presence of alien species are warranted.

DPSIR ‘Impacts’ - Biological pollution

Biological pollution - the effects of introduced invasive species sufficient to disturb an individual, a population or a community resulting in their “fitness for survival” decrease; including the causation of adverse economic consequences (Elliott 2003).

What is the threshold for biological pollution?

How to formally separate between levels of actual impacts of AS?

Therefore, a risk-based assessment of invasiveness of the established AS may be undertaken. It can be considered as cost-effective way for developing practicable indicators for ‘‘impacts’’ in the DPSIR framework.

Species-specific biopollution risk assessed by invasiveness of separate alien species with respect to 3 descriptors:

- High risk of dispersal (HRD)

- High risk for establishment (HRE)

- High risk to cause ecological and negative S-E impacts (HRI)

Assessment of invasiveness of alien species established in the ecosystem

DPSIR ‘Impacts’ - Biological pollution risk

Procedure for listing alien species with respect to their potential invasiveness (ability to cause adverse ecological or socioeconomic impacts)

Grey, White and Black Lists - listing of alien species according to the European strategy on invasive alien species (Genovesi and Shine 2004, Nehring and Klingenstein 2008).

Group Grey List White List Black List

Annelida 6

Mollusca 4 9

Crustacea 8 5 13

Other 1 2

Total 9 15 24

Summary for alien benthic macroinvertebrates in European inland waterways

Integrated biological pollution risk (IBPR) index

IBPR classes: 0, No biopollution risk, blue cell; 1, Low biopollution risk, green cell; 2, Moderate biopolution risk, yellow cells; 3, High biopollution risk, orange cells; 4, Severe biopolution risk, red cells , which correspond to High, Good, Moderate, Poor and Bad status with respect to risk of biological pollution, respectively.

Proportion of aliens

Application of biocontamination and biopollution risk indices for quality status assessment in

the Pripyat River

Panov et al. 2009

Integrated biopollution risk for selected Assessment Units within European inland waterways

Panov VE, Alexandrov B, Arbačiauskas K, Binimelis R, Copp GH, Grabowski M, Lucy F, Leuven RSEW, Nehring S, Paunović M, Semenchenko V, Son MO. 2009. Assessing the risks of aquatic species invasions via European inland waterways: from concepts to environmental indicators. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management 5: 110-126Short version – Pensoft Atlas of Biodiversity Risks (in press)

Arbačiauskas K, Semenchenko VP, Grabowski M, Leuven RSEW, Paunović M, Son MO, Csányi B, Gumuliauskaitė S, Konopacka A, Nehring S, van der Velde G, Vezhnovetz V, Panov VE. 2008. Assessment of biocontamination of benthic macroinvertebrate communities in European inland waterways. Aquatic Invasions 3: 211–230.

2. Management applications for ‘State’ and ‘Impacts’:Control and eradication of established species from Black List . SBC index, IBC and IBR indices as indicators of the effectiveness of management measures

1. Assessment of quality status of water bodies for WFD:Site-specific Biological Contamination index, Integrated Biological Contamination index,Biopollution Risk index

Conclusions/Recommendations

3. Methods for holistic assessment of quality status still required