Ecosystem monitoring at global baseline sites

Bruns, D. A.; Wiersma, G. B.; Rykiel, Edward J.

doi:10.1007/bf00402459

Cited by 25 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 41 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Litter decomposition rate is often used as a metric for indexing ecosystem functioning (Bruns et al, 1991;Martius et al, 2004), and thus understanding the factors affecting these rates is of primary importance in understanding how anthropogenic and other types of change can influence ecosystem structure and functioning.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flood pattern and weather determine Populus leaf litter breakdown and nitrogen dynamics on a cold desert floodplain

Andersen

Nelson

2006

Journal of Arid Environments

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flood pattern and weather determine Populus leaf litter breakdown and nitrogen dynamics on a cold desert floodplain

Andersen

Nelson

2006

Journal of Arid Environments

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Stream and river macroinvertebrate communities (Table 2) each site (n = 5 at most sites) at basefl ow (in September and early October, 1994) only since moderate to high fl ows on the mainstem can render the river inaccessible and even dangerous. A Surber sample was employed to take fi ve replicate samples typically at one or two lateral transects on riffl e habitats across each stream site (Bruns et al, 1991;1992a,b). All organisms were counted in each sample and no subsampling was conducted.…”

Section: Stream Samplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Macroinvertebrate response to land cover, habitat, and water chemistry in a mining-impacted river ecosystem: A GIS watershed analysis

Bruns

2005

Aquat. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study addressed potential land use impacts to macroinvertebrate communities and water quality from past coal mining activities in the watershed of the North Branch of the Susquehanna River (located in northeastern Pennsylvania and southern New York). Landscape tools of GIS and remote sensing (RS) were used to calculate percent land cover (forest, agriculture, barren, urban, and water) from SPOT imagery (for tributaries) and Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) data (for river sites) on 17 subcatchments in the study area. The study design included fi eld sampling at reach locations at four fi rst-and second-order sites with low urban and low barren (mining) land cover, four similar sized sites with high mining and high barren land cover, fi ve sites with intermediate combinations of urban and barren, and four mainstem river sites (60 % forest and 35 % agriculture). Sites were sampled in early fall for macroinvertebrates (17 parameters, e. g., EPT richness, percent fi lterers), benthic substrates (including deposits from mine waters), and 10 water chemistry parameters. A principal component analysis (PCA) on the macroinvertebrate parameters provided plot-clustering of subcatchments based generally on the above study design groupings; river sites clustered closer to smaller streams with low mining and urban land cover. Correlations identifi ed six macroinvertebrate parameters (e. g., EPT richness, collector-gatherers) best associated with the three major axes of the PCA; each of these six indicators was analyzed in step-wise multiple regressions as dependent variables against land cover, benthic substrate, and water chemistry parameters. The strongest regressions were for percent barren land cover that explained the greatest amount of variation in both EPT richness and taxa richness. This mining affect was confi rmed with dissolved iron and sulfate concentrations and levels of sedimentation and iron deposition explaining variability across several macroinvertebrate parameters. Comparison to the published literature on mining impacts indicated advantages to using a GIS watershed approach in multivariate analyses of stream ecosystem response. Also, this appears to be the fi rst GIS watershed assessment of mining land use affects since most published studies of land use impacts to watersheds and lotic ecosystems have focused on either agriculture or urbanization.

show abstract

“…Goulter & Allaway 1979). Unlike for other forest types ( Bruns et al 1991 ), relatively little comparison among mangrove locations suffering different degrees of degradation has been made in this way, rather than among tree species or latitudes. In a notable exception, Lugo et al (1981) did report altered rates of litterfall and insect attack in oiled mangroves compared with unoiled controls.…”

Section: Pilot Study: Mangrove Ecosystems Near Sydney New South Walesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determining the ‘health’ of estuaries: Priorities for ecological research

Fairweather

1999

Australian Journal of Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

What we need here is a theory of ecosystem structure and function that goes beyond correlational techniques (cf. RIVPACS) and includes predictions about normal states from an experimentally substantiated understanding of ecosystems. (Calow 1992) However, Karr (1996) further emphasized 'integrity' as natural variation in countable components andAbstract 'Ecosystem health' is a relatively new concept for environmental science and management. Although at least two international journals use the term in their titles, there have been few applications of it for estuaries and soft-sediment habitats around the world. In this paper I: (i) introduce the ideas behind ecosystem health, and assess their relation with other usage such as 'integrity' or 'quality'; (ii) sketch the sorts of multidisciplinary studies that could contribute to an assessment of health of an estuary and how these must be approached in developing useful indicators; and (iii) make a case for including measurements of the rates of ecological processes in such an assessment. These rate measurements, termed 'ecoassays', focus on important processes such as decomposition, recruitment, predator-prey interactions, and the like. A case study is introduced wherein these processes were assessed in mangrove stands of estuaries around Sydney, New South Wales, by explicitly comparing the rates of herbivory and decomposition of mangrove leaves, attack of fallen wood by shipworms, and colonization of pneumatophores by algae, as well as with more traditional estimates of 'standing stocks'. Not surprisingly, the different measures retrieved various patterns and the challenge now is to integrate these into a scheme that indicates something of value. The potential utility of such measures is discussed in relation to the various scientific and managerial requirements of environmental monitoring.

show abstract

Ecosystem monitoring at global baseline sites

Cited by 25 publications

References 41 publications

Flood pattern and weather determine Populus leaf litter breakdown and nitrogen dynamics on a cold desert floodplain

Flood pattern and weather determine Populus leaf litter breakdown and nitrogen dynamics on a cold desert floodplain

Macroinvertebrate response to land cover, habitat, and water chemistry in a mining-impacted river ecosystem: A GIS watershed analysis

Determining the ‘health’ of estuaries: Priorities for ecological research

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About