Wood_Everall et al ENV_POLL2018.pdf (1.78 MB)
Sensitivity of the early life stages of a mayfly to fine sediment and orthophosphate levels
journal contribution
posted on 2018-01-25, 11:16 authored by Nicholas C. Everall, Matthew F. Johnson, Paul WoodPaul Wood, Lauren Mattingley© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. The ecological effects of interacting stressors within lotic ecosystems have been widely acknowledged. In particular, the ecological effects of elevated fine sediment inputs and phosphate have been identified as key factors influencing faunal community structure and composition. However, while knowledge regarding adult and larval life stage responses to environmental stressors has grown, there has been very limited research on their eggs. In this study, the eggs of the mayfly Serratella ignita (Ephemerellidae: Ephemeroptera) were collected and incubated in laboratory aquaria to hatching under differing concentrations of inert suspended sediment (SS) and orthophosphate (OP), individually and in combination. Results indicate that SS and OP have greater effects on egg hatching in combination than when either were considered in isolation. SS displayed a greater effect on egg survival than OP in isolation or when OP was added to elevated SS treatments. Egg mortality in control treatments was around 6% compared to 45% in treatments with 25 mg l -1 SS and 52% in 0.3 mg l -1 OP treatments. Even relatively modest levels of each stressor (10 mg l -1 SS; 0.1 mg l -1 OP), below national legal thresholds, had significant effects on egg survival to hatching. The results support calls for legal levels of SS to be reassessed and suggest that more research is required to assess the impacts of pollution on invertebrate egg development given their different sensitivity and exposure pathways compared to other life stages.
Funding
This work was supported by the Salmon and Trout Conservation UK who provided funding for the chemical analysis.
History
Department
- Geography and Environment
Published in
Environmental PollutionVolume
237Pages
792-802Citation
EVERALL, N.C. ...et al., 2017. Sensitivity of the early life stages of a mayfly to fine sediment and orthophosphate levels. Environmental Pollution, 237, pp.792-802.Publisher
© ElsevierVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Acceptance date
2017-10-31Publication date
2017-11-15Copyright date
2018Notes
This paper was published in the journal Environmental Pollution and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2017.10.131.ISSN
0269-7491eISSN
1873-6424Publisher version
Language
- en