Redundancy in the ecological assessment of lakes: Are phytoplankton, macrophytes and phytobenthos all necessary?

Although the Water Framework Directive specifies that macrophytes and phytobenthos should be used for the ecological assessment of lakes and rivers, practice varies widely throughout the EU. Most countries have separate methods for macrophytes and phytobenthos in rivers; however, the situation is very different for lakes. Here, a number of countries do not have dedicated phytobenthos methods, some include filamentous algae within macrophyte survey methods whilst others use diatoms as proxies for phytobenthos. The most widely-cited justification for not having a dedicated phytobenthos method is redundancy, i.e. that macrophyte and phytoplankton assessments alone are sufficient to detect impacted lakes. Evidence from those European Union Member States that have dedicated phytobenthos methods largely supports this for high level overviews of lake condition and classification; however, there are a number of situations where phytobenthos may contribute valuable information for the management of lakes. For this reason, Member States should be encouraged to use phytobenthos as one of a number of strands of evidence that underpins management of lake ecosystems.

KELLY Martyn;  BIRK Sebastian;  WILLBY Nigel;  DENYS Luc;  DRAKARE Stina;  KAHLERT Maria;  KARJALAINEN Saatu Maria;  MARCHETTO Aldo;  PITT Jo-Anne;  URBANIC Gorazd;  POIKANE Sandra; 

2016-12-15

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

JRC99705

0048-9697,   

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969716302340,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC99705,   

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.02.024,