New ecosystem-based approaches to understand the risks to aquatic biodiversity from human activities

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Background & RationaleFreshwater pollution is increasing in line with industrial development in multiple countries, with higher levels of ecosystem degradation over past decades as a result (Förstner and Prosi,1979; Camargo, 1994; Stauffer, 2013). Decline in biodiversity associated with freshwater ecosystem degradation will have increasing negative impacts on ecosystem services, such as clean water supply, flood abatement as well as recreational benefits to society (Wilson and Carpenter, 1999; Aylward et al., 2005; Dodds, Perkin and Gerken, 2013). In order to identify and avoid ecosystem damage before it becomes irreversible, current environmental impact assessments use biological indicators from select species to represent the effects on an entire ecosystem (de la Torre, Ferrari and Salibián, 2002; Hellawell, 2012). However this may be too vague of an approach, as single indicators may not reflect that of an entire community of varying species (McCarty, Power and Munkittrick, 2002; Bartell, 2006). In addition, inherent variation in individual responses within a species to environmental change, which could be caused by phenotypic variability, would limit the effectiveness of using individuals to gauge community level effects.Ecological risk assessment approaches that include more species could be a key improvement in current methods, and provide effective early warnings of ecosystem damage and collapseunder a multitude of pressures (Kefford et al., 2005).This project will aim to provide evidence-based information to better develop future ecological risk assessments by observing the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem function infreshwater ecosystems. The outcome of this project could contribute to conserving biodiversity more effectively through sustainable development as human population and development continues to increase.Research QuestionsThis project is addressing three main questions:1. What are the relationships between indicators of freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem functions within eco-regions, and how can the choice of indicator affect the measure of change in ecosystem health?2. What is the impact of chemical and other stressors on ecosystem function, is there any evidence of threshold effects, and do any species traits make them highly vulnerable to loss?3. What is the robustness of various ecosystem function indicators within ecological risk assessments, and which of these would be reliable measures of whole ecosystem response that could provide early warnings of ecosystem damage?