Inland navigation and land use interact to impact European freshwater biodiversity.

Inland navigation in Europe is proposed to increase in the coming years, being promoted as a low-carbon form of transport. However, we currently lack knowledge on how this would impact biodiversity at large scales and interact with existing stressors. Here we addressed this knowledge gap by analysing fish and macroinvertebrate community time series across large European rivers comprising 19,592 observations from 4,049 sampling sites spanning the past 32 years. We found ship traffic to be associated with biodiversity declines, that is, loss of fish and macroinvertebrate taxonomic richness, diversity and trait richness. Ship traffic was also associated with increases in taxonomic evenness, which, in concert with richness decreases, was attributed to losses in rare taxa. Ship traffic was especially harmful for benthic taxa and those preferring slow flows. These effects often depended on local land use and riparian degradation. In fish, negative impacts of shipping were highest in urban and agricultural landscapes. Regarding navigation infrastructure, the negative impact of channelization on macroinvertebrates was evident only when riparian degradation was also high. Our results demonstrate the risk of increasing inland navigation on freshwater biodiversity. Integrative waterway management accounting for riparian habitats and landscape characteristics could help to mitigate these impacts.

Riverscape approaches in practice: perspectives and applications.

Landscape perspectives in riverine ecology have been undertaken increasingly in the last 30 years, leading aquatic ecologists to develop a diverse set of approaches for conceptualizing, mapping and understanding 'riverscapes'. Spatiotemporally explicit perspectives of rivers and their biota nested within the socio-ecological landscape now provide guiding principles and approaches in inland fisheries and watershed management. During the last two decades, scientific literature on riverscapes has increased rapidly, indicating that the term and associated approaches are serving an important purpose in freshwater science and management. We trace the origins and theoretical foundations of riverscape perspectives and approaches and examine trends in the published literature to assess the state of the science and demonstrate how they are being applied to address recent challenges in the management of riverine ecosystems. We focus on approaches for studying and visualizing rivers and streams with remote sensing, modelling and sampling designs that enable pattern detection as seen from above (e.g. river channel, floodplain, and riparian areas) but also into the water itself (e.g. aquatic organisms and the aqueous environment). Key concepts from landscape ecology that are central to riverscape approaches are heterogeneity, scale (resolution, extent and scope) and connectivity (structural and functional), which underpin spatial and temporal aspects of study design, data collection and analysis. Mapping of physical and biological characteristics of rivers and floodplains with high-resolution, spatially intensive techniques improves understanding of the causes and ecological consequences of spatial patterns at multiple scales. This information is crucial for managing river ecosystems, especially for the successful implementation of conservation, restoration and monitoring programs. Recent advances in remote sensing, field-sampling approaches and geospatial technology are making it increasingly feasible to collect high-resolution data over larger scales in space and time. We highlight challenges and opportunities and discuss future avenues of research with emerging tools that can potentially help to overcome obstacles to collecting, analysing and displaying these data. This synthesis is intended to help researchers and resource managers understand and apply these concepts and approaches to address real-world problems in freshwater management.

Modeling diadromous fish loss from historical data: Identification of anthropogenic drivers and testing of mitigation scenarios.

Diadromous fishes have drastically declined over the last century, especially in Europe. Several authors have highlighted the role of large dams in this decline, but in fact, its causes are potentially multiple and cumulative, including degradation of local environmental conditions and widespread fragmentation of hydrographic networks associated with the pervasive establishment of smaller barriers. Consequently, there is a need to improve the identification and prioritization of the drivers of diadromous species loss in order to identify and apply the most appropriate conservation and restoration measures. In this study, we used both historical sources (from mid-18th to early 20th century) and current data to quantify the long-term loss of diadromous taxa over 555 sites throughout the French river network. Then, we modeled the effects of several anthropogenic pressures (e.g. barriers, water quality, hydrological and river morphological alterations) on diadromous taxon loss. Lastly, we assessed the potential consequences of four different scenarios of anthropogenic pressure reduction. Due to uncertainties in historical sources, some species were grouped into taxa leading to a potential underestimation of actual species extinctions. Despite this limitation, our results showed that the decline in diadromous assemblages is widespread but with contrasting magnitudes depending on site locations. The maximum height and density of barriers appeared as the major factors of taxon loss. Over the scenarios tested, we observed that exclusively improving local conditions have much more limited effects than restoring river continuity. Focusing actions on large dam removal did not show the strongest responses compared to removing medium and small-sized barriers. For effective and sustainable restoration of diadromous fish assemblage, (1) historical occurrences of diadromous fishes should be used as an indicator for assessing recovery, and (2) undertaken measures must be adapted to each basin to target and limit the number of barriers to remove while allowing diadromous fish recovery.

A diagnosis-based approach to assess specific risks of river degradation in a multiple pressure context: Insights from fish communities.

In the context of increasing pressure on water bodies, many fish-based indices have been developed to evaluate the ecological status of rivers. However, most of these indices suffer from several limitations, which hamper the capacity of water managers to select the most appropriate measures of restoration. Those limitations include: (i) being dependent on reference conditions, (ii) not satisfactorily handling complex and non-linear biological responses to pressure gradients, and (iii) being unable to identify specific risks of stream degradation in a multi-pressure context. To tackle those issues, we developed a diagnosis-based approach using Random Forest models to predict the impairment probabilities of river fish communities by 28 pressure categories (chemical, hydromorphological and biological). In addition, the database includes the abundances of 72 fish species collected from 1527 sites in France, sampled between 2005 and 2015; and fish taxonomic and biological information. Twenty random forest models provided at least good performances when evaluating impairment probabilities of fish communities by those pressures. The best performing models indicated that fish communities were impacted, on average, by 7.34 ±â€¯0.03 abiotic pressure categories (mean ±â€¯SE), and that hydromorphological alterations (5.27 ±â€¯0.02) were more often detected than chemical ones (2.06 ±â€¯0.02). These models showed that alterations in longitudinal continuity, and contaminations by Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons were respectively the most frequent hydromorphological and chemical pressure categories in French rivers. This approach has also efficiently detected the functional impact of invasive alien species. Identifying and ranking the impacts of multiple anthropogenic pressures that trigger functional shifts in river biological communities is essential for managers to prioritize actions and to implement appropriate restoration programmes. Actually implemented in an R package, this approach has the capacity to detect a variety of impairments, resulting in an efficient assessment of ecological risks across various spatial and temporal scales.

Biological impacts of local vs. regional land use on a small tributary of the Seine River (France): insights from a food web approach based on stable isotopes.

As part of the landscape, streams are influenced by land use. Here, we contributed to the understanding of the biological impacts of land use on streams, investigating how landscape effects vary with spatial scales (local vs. regional). We adopted a food web approach integrating both biological structure and functioning, to focus on the overall effect of land use on stream biocœnosis. We selected 17 sites of a small tributary of the Seine River (France) for their contrasted land use, and conducted a natural experiment by sampling three organic matter sources, three macroinvertebrate taxa, and most of the fish community. Using stable isotope analysis, we calculated three food web metrics evaluating two major dimensions of the trophic diversity displayed by the fish community: (i) the diversity of exploited resources and (ii) the trophic level richness. The idea was to examine whether (1) land-use effects varied according to spatial scales, (2) land use affected food webs through an effect on community structure and (3) land use affected food webs through an effect on available resources. Beside an increase in trophic diversity from upstream to downstream, our empirical data showed that food webs were influenced by land use in the riparian corridors (local scale). The effect was complex, and depended on site's position along the upstream-downstream gradient. By contrast, land use in the catchment (regional scale) did not influence stream biocœnosis. At the local scale, community structure was weakly influenced by land use, and thus played a minor role in explaining food web modifications. Our results suggested that the amount of available resources at the base of the food web was partly responsible for food web modifications. In addition, changes in biological functioning (i.e. feeding interactions) can also explain another part of the land-use effect. These results highlight the role played by the riparian corridors as a buffer zone, and advocate that riparian corridor should be at the centre of water management attention.

Reconstructing long-term trajectories of fish assemblages using historical data: the Seine River basin (France) during the last two centuries.

We used historical sources from the end of the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century and current data to retrace fish assemblage trajectories for the past 150 years on 29 river stretches distributed throughout the Seine River basin. We based our analyses on species presence/absence, occurrence of amphidromous and non-native species, and species ecological traits related to habitat preference, oxygen and temperature requirements, and diet. In accordance with general trends observed for Western Europe, we detected a general decline of amphidromous species and an increase in non-native species, even if, at some sites, several non-native species were extirpated. These changes affecting amphidromous and non-native species led to a weak increase in beta-diversity in fish assemblages. Independently of amphidromous and non-native species, for a reduced set of sites, we noted that changes in the balance of ecological traits over time, trace, in a consistent way, the major steps that affected watercourses like waterway development, increasing pollution, dam construction, or, locally, the recent wastewater treatment improvement. Despite local variations, we found contrasted trends between, on one hand, large rivers and/or catchments which had experienced strong expansion in human population, where fish assemblages had deteriorated, and, on the other hand, upstream catchments, with a declining human population, where fish assemblages showed signs of improvement. Because our results suggested that long-term changes affecting fish assemblages cannot be summarized as an unequivocal gradual degradation, we questioned the use of historical data to define ecological reference conditions for river assessment and management purposes.

When local extinction and colonization of river fishes can be predicted by regional occupancy: the role of spatial scales.

BACKGROUND: Predicting which species are likely to go extinct is perhaps one of the most fundamental yet challenging tasks for conservation biologists. This is particularly relevant for freshwater ecosystems which tend to have the highest proportion of species threatened with extinction. According to metapopulation theories, local extinction and colonization rates of freshwater subpopulations can depend on the degree of regional occupancy, notably due to rescue effects. However, relationships between extinction, colonization, regional occupancy and the spatial scales at which they operate are currently poorly known. METHODS: And Findings: We used a large dataset of freshwater fish annual censuses in 325 stream reaches to analyse how annual extinction/colonization rates of subpopulations depend on the regional occupancy of species. For this purpose, we modelled the regional occupancy of 34 fish species over the whole French river network and we tested how extinction/colonization rates could be predicted by regional occupancy described at five nested spatial scales. Results show that extinction and colonization rates depend on regional occupancy, revealing existence a rescue effect. We also find that these effects are scale dependent and their absolute contribution to colonization and extinction tends to decrease from river section to larger basin scales. CONCLUSIONS: In terms of management, we show that regional occupancy quantification allows the evaluation of local species extinction/colonization dynamics and reduction of local extinction risks for freshwater fish species implies the preservation of suitable habitats at both local and drainage basin scales.

Fish fins as non-lethal surrogates for muscle tissues in freshwater food web studies using stable isotopes.

RATIONALE: Dorsal white muscle is the standard tissue analysed in fish trophic studies using stable isotope analyses. However, sampling white muscle often implies the sacrifice of fish. Thus, we examined whether the non-lethal sampling of fin tissue can substitute muscle sampling in food web studies. METHODS: Analysing muscle and fin δ(15)N and δ(13)C values of 466 European freshwater fish (14 species) with an elemental analyser coupled with an isotope ratio mass spectrometer, we compared the isotope values of the two tissues. Correlations between fin and muscle isotope ratios were examined for all fish together and specifically for 12 species. We further proposed four methods of assessing muscle from fin isotope ratios and estimated the errors made using these muscle surrogates. RESULTS: Despite significant differences between isotope values of the two tissues, fin and muscle isotopic signals are strongly correlated. Muscle values, estimated with raw fin isotope ratios (1st method), induce an error of ca. 1‰ for both isotopes. In comparison, specific (2nd method) or general (3rd method) correlations provide meaningful corrections of fin isotope ratios (errors <0.6‰). On the other hand, relationships, established for Australian tropical fish, only give poor muscle estimates (errors >0.8‰). CONCLUSIONS: There is little chance that a global model can be created. However, the 2nd and 3rd methods of estimating muscle values from fin isotope ratios should provide an acceptable level of error for the studies of European freshwater food web. We thus recommend that future studies use fin tissue as a non-lethal surrogate for muscle.