Effects of temperature and copper pollution on soil community—extreme temperature events can lead to community extinction

Abstract

Global warming affects ecosystems and species' diversity. The physiology of individual species is highly influenced by changes in temperature. The effects on species communities are less studied; they are virtually unknown when combining effects of pollution and temperature. To assess the effects of temperature and pollution in the soil community, a 2-factorial soil mesocosms multispecies experiment was performed. Three exposure periods (28 d, 61 d, and 84 d) and 4 temperatures (19 °C, 23 °C, 26 °C, and 29 °C) were tested, resembling the mean annual values for southern Europe countries and extreme events. The soil used was from a field site, clean, or spiked with Cu (100 mg Cu/kg). Results showed clear differences between 29 °C treatment and all other temperature treatments, with a decrease in overall abundance of organisms, further potentiated by the increase in exposure time. Folsomia candida was the most abundant species and Enchytraeus crypticus was the most sensitive to Cu toxicity. Differences in species optimum temperatures were adequately covered: 19 °C for Hypoaspis aculeifer or 26 °C for E. crypticus. The temperature effects were more pronounced the longer the exposure time. Feeding activity decreased with higher temperature and exposure time, following the decrease in invertebrate abundance, whereas for the same conditions the organic matter turnover increased. Hence, negative impacts on ecosystem services because of temperature increase can be expected by changes on soil function and as consequence of biodiversity loss.

Combined effect of temperature and copper pollution on soil bacterial community: Climate change and regional variation aspects

“…Since this study is part of a broader multi-species experiment (Menezes-Oliveira et al, 2013, 2014, hence a series of pre-treatments were required due to standardised purposes (e.g. drying to eliminate soil fauna).…”

“…The total Cu concentrations used at the two sites were different, which was in part to mimic equivalent effect concentrations taking the soil type differences into account (see Menezes-Oliveira et al 2013) as confirmed by the similar toxicity to invertebrates between soils using a factor of 10 as a consequence of variations in the bioavailability of Cu between soils. There is no analytical chemical method to confirm the bioavailable fraction as this of course also depends on the species trait and will be species specific.…”

“…In the studies by Menezes-Oliveira et al (2013, 2014, the organic matter (OM) decomposition was assessed as a functional measure and the role of the bacterial community and diversity seems obvious: in the PT soil, the invertebrates' density were decreased to nearly 0 along time with increased temperature, hence the bacterial community must have played an important functional role in the OM turnover since for both Ct and Cu spiked soils at any temperature there was an increase in OM degradation with time. This is also in agreement with the measured increase in microbial diversity.…”

Nanomaterials in the Environment: Perspectives on in Vivo Terrestrial Toxicity Testing

“…It has been given considerable focus and has currently an extensive suite of tools available for hazard assessment, far beyond the standard ecotoxicity test battery of many other species. The tools cover bioaccumulation (Amorim et al, 2011), avoidance (Bicho et al, 2015a), full life cycle test (Bicho et al, 2015b(Bicho et al, , 2016(Bicho et al, , 2017aSantos et al, 2017), embryotoxicity (Gonçalves et al, 2015), full life span (Gonçalves et al, 2017), multigenerational (Bicho et al, 2017b), multispecies (mesocosm) system (SMS) (Menezes-Oliveira et al, 2013), full transcriptome and microarray tool (Castro-Ferreira et al, 2014;Gomes et al, 2017), oxidative stress biomarkers (Ribeiro et al, 2015), energy metabolism and cellular energy allocation , genotoxicity via the comet assay (Maria et al, 2017), and metabolomics and proteomics. This species has further potential as it can be exposed via water for a short period and hence allows the assessment of other routes of exposure (Gomes et al, 2015b).…”

A conceptual framework for the emerging discipline of conservation physiology

“…Global environmental change is leading to unprecedented levels of biodiversity loss ( Rockstrom et al , 2009 ). Anthropogenic drivers of decline, including habitat alteration ( Kerr and Deguise, 2004 ; Gallant et al , 2007 ), climate change ( Pearson and Dawson, 2005 ; Monahan and Hijmans, 2008 ) and pollution ( Menezes-Oliveira et al , 2013 ), perturb the physiological optimization of organisms ( Carey, 2005 ; Pörtner and Farrell, 2008 ). When unchecked, effects of species decline can cascade through ecosystems and trophic communities ( Duffy, 2003 ), leading to loss of specialist species ( White and Kerr, 2007 ) or even changes in system state ( Beisner et al , 2003 ).…”