Strength and uncertainty of lake phytoplankton metrics for assessing eutrophication impacts in lakes.
2012
CARVALHO Laurence | POIKANE Sandra | LYCHE SOLHEIM Anne | PHILLIPS Geoff | BORICS Gabor | CATALAN Jordi | DE HOYOS Caridad | DRAKARE Stina | DUDLEY Bernard | JARVINEN Marko | LAPLACE-TREYTURE Christophe | MAILEHT Kairi | MCDONALD Claire | MISCHKE U | MOE Jannicke | MORABITO G. | NOGES Peeter | NOGES Tiina | OTT Ingmar | PASZTALENIEC Agnieszka | SKJELBRED B. | THACKERAY Stephen
Phytoplankton constitutes a diverse array of short-lived organisms which derive their nutrients from the water column of lakes. These features make this community the most direct and earliest indicator of the impacts of changing nutrient conditions on lake ecosystems. It also makes them particularly suitable for measuring the success of restoration measures following reduction in nutrient loads. This paper integrates a large volume of work on a number of measures, or metrics, developed or using phytoplankton to assess the ecological status of European lakes, as required for the Water Framework Directive (WFD). It examines the indicator strenght of these metrics, specifically in relation to representing the impacts of eutrophication. It also examines how these measures vary naturally at different locations within a lake, as well as between lakes, and how much variability is associated with different replicate samples, different months within a year and between years. On the basis of this analysis, three of the strongest metrics (chlorophyll-a, Phytoplankton Trophic Index (PTI) and cyanobacterial biovolume) are recommended for use as robust measures for assessing the ecological quality of lakes in relation to nutrient enrichment pressures and a minimum recommended sampling frequency is provided for these three metrics.
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