CEH lakes research presented at 2015 Aquatic Sciences Meeting

A number of CEH's lake researchers are in attendance at the 2015 Aquatic Sciences Meeting taking place this week in Granada, Spain (22-27 February). See below for details of oral and poster presentations. You can follow updates from the meeting on Twitter with #ASLO2015.

• An assessment of benthic-pelagic coupling of arsenic in a shallow lake recovering from industrial pollution (Kinghorn Loch, UK). Justyna Olszewska
• Detecting the full suite of signals from freshwater lakes and attributing their cause. Stephen Maberly.
• Long-term effects of dredging on sediment phosphorus in a shallow lake - Barton Broad, Norfolk, UK. Alanna Moore
• Understanding phytoplankton community phenology: creating a long-term index of seasonal timing related to traits and physical drivers. Eleanor Mackay
• Assessing macrophyte recovery in lakes treated with Phoslock. Kate Waters.
• Investigating multiple critical transitions in Loch Leven (1968-2013). Stephen Ives.
• Controlling internal phosphorus loading in lakes using geo-engineering: lessons from multiple whole lake experiments. Bryan Spears.

Photo: CEH scientists carrying out restoration research at a lake in Scotland

 

Related links

2015 ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting

UK Lake Restoration research at CEH

Lake Ecosystems research at CEH

Ecological processes and resilience - science area at CEH

We're delivering our Science Strategy (2014-2019) through a number of Science Areas and underpinning activities. Find out more about each area as we profile them over the coming weeks in a series of blog posts. 

This post focuses on our Ecological Processes & Resilience science area, which is headed by Dr Allan Watt. Understanding of ecological processes, particularly those that affect the resilience of species, is needed to maintain ecosystems and the delivery of ecosystem services.

The benefits that flow from biodiversity and ecosystem services are increasingly under threat from environmental change. Threats include habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change and over-exploitation of natural resources. The threats are exacerbated by pests, diseases, alien invasive species and other drivers of global environmental change.

We’ll identify early warnings of regime shifts & tipping points in freshwater, terrestrial & marine ecosystems pic.twitter.com/IWEgcAVZGW
— CEH Science News (@CEHScienceNews) February 6, 2014

In our research we combine long-term datasets and use citizen science, models and experimental systems to examine the impacts of single and multiple drivers, including socio-economic drivers, on populations, species and ecosystems.

Ecologists get first bumblebees’ eye view of the landscape – news from today’s pollinators symposium at #INT13 http://t.co/Yre1tTTDo7
— CEH Science News (@CEHScienceNews) August 22, 2013

Population stability 'hope' in species' response to climate change - @UKBMSLive butterfly data used in new research http://t.co/2uzTEDSlLz
— CEH Science News (@CEHScienceNews) January 6, 2014

Other research objectives include assessing strategies to adapt to climate change in forestry, assessing lake restoration techniques, quantifying links between biodiversity and resilience to invasion by pests across a range of ecosystems, and linking time-series data from different trophic levels to assess the degree of synchrony of species interactions.

The Success of the Horse-Chestnut Leaf-Miner Revealed with Hypothesis-Led Citizen Science http://t.co/vmn7ss7cn0 pic.twitter.com/8PkiWSEM6G
— PLOS ONE (@PLOSONE) January 22, 2014

Looking at first results for our #phenology - climate change project (http://t.co/KQ5EoxqSi6). Very excited about bringing this together!
— Stephen Thackeray (@SteveThackeray) October 16, 2013

@SteveThackeray et al use phenological metrics to show #foodweb de-synchronisation in #Windermere http://t.co/bEvkKp0rJd
— Windermere Science (@WinSci) August 5, 2013

Resilience of upland #soils to long-term environmental changes http://t.co/mEARxYG2 Geoderma (£) #chemistry
— CEH Paper Alerts (@CEHPaperAlerts) February 12, 2013

Long-term monitoring activities that help us in this Science Area include the Isle of May Study,  the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme and Loch Leven surveillance.

Loch Leven research by @LacLaurence & CEH Freshwater Ecology group http://t.co/NWxmV2FM46
— globolakes (@globolakes) September 21, 2013

A photo from this year’s Isle of May #puffin count – results out tomorrow #seabirds pic.twitter.com/OASHH0uxKc
— CEH Science News (@CEHScienceNews) May 30, 2013

Find out more about our Ecological Processes & Resilience Science Area, including a Science Area Summary [PDF], on the CEH website.

Additional information

CEH Science Strategy

Lake restoration research at CEH

Staff page of Dr Allan Watt

From Nairn to San Diego... CEH lake restoration research hits the road

Details of CEH lake research were presented at an international conference last week by one of our former PhD students:

Dr Sebastian Meis presented results of his PhD study at the 33rd International Symposium of the North American Lake Management Society (NALMS: 30 October - 3 November 2013) in San Diego, USA. In his presentation, entitled "Seasonal responses of physicochemical and biological variables following disruption of internal phosphorus loading using lanthanum-modified bentonite clay (Phoslock®): insights from laboratory and whole lake experiments", he highlighted the major findings of the whole lake manipulation study conducted at Loch Flemington (Nairn, UK) by CEH.

The conference focused on measures for in-lake phosphorus control available to lake managers, with various presentations focusing on the use of alum, oxygenation / aeration and de-stratification as possible management tools. Conference attendees included scientists, lake managers, consultancies, as well as companies. Dr Meis was also invited to present at an additional special session on the use of geo-engineering approaches for phosphorus management in lakes, where he highlighted the need for greater accuracy when estimating product dose at the site specific scale.

Dr Bryan Spears, a co-author on the talk and Sebastian's supervisor during his PhD, writes:

"It's great to see the importance of Seb's work being recognised through his invitation to present at the special session. Geo-engineering is being increasingly used for the control of phosphorus and eutrophication in lakes. CEH's role as an independent research organisation in informing water managers on issues associated with this approach is critical. Seb's recent work has provided scientific evidence with which decisions on the wide-scale use of this approach can be based.

This work has produced guidance on estimating effective dose of products and the identification of potential unintended chemical and ecological consequences associated with product application. Seb's results are being used to inform industry and environmental regulators on the wider use of this approach."

Sebastian Meis (right) at the NALMS conference in San Diego.

Additional information

NALMS Conference

UK Lake Restoration

Loch Flemington case study

Bryan Spears CEH staff page & ResearchGate profile

Freshwater Ecology Group's loch health research highlighted

Scientific research carried out by CEH's Freshwater Ecology Group has been highlighted in an article published recently in the popular magazine Scotland Outdoors. The article, in the Autumn 2013 edition, describes how research by the group has shaped the methods by which the health of Scotland's lochs are measured and how this work has shown that Scotland has some of the cleanest and healthiest freshwaters in Europe.

Swan on Loch Leven (photo by Laurence Carvalho)

The article showcases a variety of work by members of the Edinburgh-based Group, including long-term work at CEH's flagship monitoring site at Loch Leven, ecosystem restoration work carried out at Loch Flemington, and a large-scale survey of more than 200 lochs carried out to assess the health of our most important sites of conservation interest.

Sustaining the quality of freshwaters is vital to Scotland's economy and this article highlights how the Group's research is vital to maintaining and raising the standards of this precious resource, providing responses to threats and enhancing the benefits that freshwaters bring to society.

Laurence Carvalho

Related links

Scotland Outdoors magazine (subscription required)

Loch Leven monitoring

CEH's UK lake restoration research

Staff page of Dr Laurence Carvalho

International Day of Biodiversity - Water & Biodiversity

Today is the International Day of Biological Diversity and this year's theme is Water & Biodiversity. CEH undertakes a huge amount of research and monitoring to understand the pressures on freshwater biodiversity and its crucial role in delivering benefits to nature, society and the economy. These benefits are not always obvious, but one of our most significant long-term monitoring sites, Loch Leven, at Kinross in Scotland, provides some interesting examples, including a case just this month when the largest brown trout ever recorded as being caught on the loch was landed, beating a record that had stood for more than 100 years.

The historic event coincided perfectly with an international meeting at the site to discuss the benefits of biodiversity in delivering ecosystem services.

News of improved angling at Loch Leven has been spreading across the world in recent years and this record catch is likely to attract even more visitors to the area, with consequent economic benefits both to the fishery and other businesses such as local hotels.

Importantly, this record catch reflects wider improvements in the biological health of the lake as a result of reductions in phosphorus pollution from surrounding industry, sewage and agriculture. Other improvements includes fewer algal blooms, the return of sensitive plant species and an increase in aquatic birds that feed on the plants, such as the pochard. 

A swan at Loch Leven - photo by Laurence Carvalho



CEH has collected data at Loch Leven since 1968 - it is one of more than 30 lake and river sites contributing biodiversity data to the UK Environmental Change Network, managed by CEH. Scientists at CEH have used this information to help identify the main causes of water quality problems at the site. Loch Leven is an excellent example of a lake that supplies a wide range of ecosystem services, including water supply, tourism and the fishery, as well as being an important wetland biodiversity site, supporting nationally and internationally important populations of wildfowl.

The benefits of managing ecosystem services better is precisely what the meeting in Kinross was focused on. Project teams from two major EU-funded research projects on this topic, OpenNESS and OPERAs, were there to discuss how to ensure that scientific knowledge on ecosystem services and natural capital is used by land managers, businessmen and policymakers to generate sustained benefits for nature, society and for the economy. One area of collaboration between the projects will be a joint pool of 35 case studies across the globe. CEH are leading two case studies in the OpenNESS project, one at Loch Leven and one examining the Cairngorms National Park.

What you can do to help our freshwater biodiversity research:

• Get involved in the recording of freshwater biodiversity via the online recording website iRecord, which is being developed by the Biological Records Centre
• Track invasive freshwater plants using the mobile phone app PlantTracker, which is integrated with iRecord

 

Further information

International Day of Biological Diversity

CEH research on freshwater biodiversity at Loch Leven

CEH research in the Cairngorms National Park

UK Lake Restoration research at CEH

Environmental Change Network

OpenNESS: http://www.openness-project.eu/

Loch Leven Fisheries Blog:  Loch Leven record smashed

CEH News (July 2012): Loch Leven water quality quality is best for 20 years

Building environmental research links in Beijing

The first visit of research scientists to discuss opportunities for collaboration following the recent Memorandum of agreement signed between environmental researchers in China and the UK took place earlier this month. One of the CEH participants, Dr Bryan Spears, tells us more...

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences (RCEES) signed the MoU with the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) and the James Hutton Institute (JHI) in March 2013 [news story], initially to target research on topics including recovery of polluted environments, water management, food security, soil contamination and the development of eco-toxicology tools for environmental monitoring.

Researchers from all four institutes met in Beijing between 14-18 April. One of the areas of discussion was the remediation and restoration of polluted environments, and a team including Professor Gang Pan (CAS), Professor Stephen Maberly (CEH), Dr Bryan Spears (CEH) and Dr Andrew Vinten (JHI) participated in four days of dialogue and field trips which focused on the restoration and management of lakes and their catchments. These discussions were extremely productive and were used to produce both short-term and long-term research objectives.




Figure 1: Researchers from the four groups outside CAS

  

Day 1 was allocated to joint presentations (Pan, Maberly, Spears and Vinten) with Professor Pan’s colleagues and students in attendance, to outline current areas of expertise, facilities and collaborative opportunities.

• Professor Pan outlined a range of geo-engineering techniques developed for the rapid control of cyanobacteria in freshwater lakes and presented some novel techniques for encouraging macrophyte recovery and controlling redox conditions in surface sediments.
• Professor Maberly introduced research conducted by the Lake Ecology Group at Lancaster including studies on the ecological and physical responses of lakes to climate change, nutrient enrichment and the ingress of invasive species and highlighted the potential for lakes to feedback to climate systems through carbon processing pathways.
• Dr Spears presented work on lake restoration including data screening approaches being used to combine large spatial scale and long-term lake monitoring data sets to aid the selection and application of appropriate lake management measures. Dr Spears also presented an update on whole lake experiments using geo-engineering approaches for the control of legacy phosphorus sources in bed sediments.
• Dr Vinten highlighted the need to learn from local communities, especially with regards to how the management of water resources can be fitted to local community needs – whether in Scotland or China. This need was demonstrated using stakeholder-led catchment management case studies including Rescobie Loch on the Lunan Water in Angus and in the Pantanal, Brazil.

Day 2 and 3 included an overnight visit to Datong to see the recently built large experimental ponds where a trial of Modified Local Soils had been conducted to rapidly remove harmful cyanobacterial from treatment ponds (Figure 2 and 3). This experimental facility was funded by the Datong City Water Supply and Drainage Group Ltd and will be used to develop novel management strategies for the improvement of water quality in the nearby Cetian Reservoir, as well as being developed to support international research collaborations.



Figure 2: Experimental treatment ponds








Figure 3: Professor Pan holding treated and untreated water



The visit was hosted by the water company who also participated in a discussion on local issues of water management and economic costs of treatment (Figure 4). The importance of the newly constructed experimental facility for the development of novel management measures with which treatment costs can be reduced was discussed, as was the importance of international collaboration to meet these objectives. 




Figure 4: Prof Stephen Maberly discussing the importance of the facility with
Dr Zengguang Zhang of the Datong City Water Supply and Drainage Group Ltd,
and other stakeholders.

 



On Day 4 the group discussed collaborative research opportunities and structured these into a research strategy. This strategy has at its core the collection of joint data sets and exchange of expertise to fill knowledge gaps in each collaborating institute.

After a busy few days, the trip ended on the evening of 18 April with just enough time for a social event involving Karaoke, one of the (dubious) highlights of which was a painful rendition of Robbie Williams’ “Angels”, led by CEH pair Professor Maberly and Dr Spears!

Over the coming days the team will develop a report outlining the research objectives to be submitted to institute directors for consideration. Watch this space for further updates.

Additional information

CEH Lake Ecosystems Group

CEH's UK Lake Restoration research

Staff page of Professor Stephen Maberly

Staff page of Dr Bryan Spears

CEH News: CEH and James Hutton Institute build research links in China

James Hutton Institute

Communicating CEH Lake Restoration research – we’re speaking the same language!

In the UK we take it for granted that our work will be presented in English. However, presenting our work in English does not always allow us to reach the widest possible audience. This was all too apparent to two PhD students based at CEH’s Edinburgh site who realised that they could increase the exposure of their work by attending conferences in their home countries (Germany and Poland) and presenting their work in their native languages. As the students highlight to us below, this has been an enlightening and rewarding process.

The workshop “Lake remediation – Experiences and new challenges (Seentherapie - Erfahrungen und neue Herausforderungen) organized by the IGB Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (Germany) in March 2013 offered the opportunity to exchange and discuss experiences in the expanding field of lake remediation measures between experts from consultancies, agencies and scientists. Sebastian Meis presented the findings of his PhD study on the use of a phosphorus (P) binding and P-capping agent for sediment P-release management in shallow lakes in the session “Eutrophication control measures” (“Technische Maßnahmen zur Verminderung der Eutrophierung”).
 


Delegates at the Lake remediation workshop organised by the IGB Leibniz-
Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Germany in March 2013



Sebastian said, “This was a great opportunity to present my work in my native language, and to increase the exposure of CEH research more widely. The feedback on our work was very positive and I learned that similar projects are being conducted at a relatively large scale in Germany as part of the EU Water Framework Directive.”   

Whilst in Gdansk, Poland, Justyna Olszewska was giving an invited lecture on CEH’s research on lake restoration to the Gdansk Water Foundation, in Polish. The Foundation organises seminars focusing on the "hot" topics in the field, and given 2013 was officially nominated “Lake Year" by the Marshal Office of Pomerania Region, this seminar was devoted to the subject of lake restoration.

Justyna said, “Introducing CEH’s lake restoration research in Polish was a very interesting experience. It allowed me to compare the results of restoration work conducted in the UK with the Polish experiences in this area. It was great to discuss management issues with Polish scientists and local authorities and we now have a much better appreciation of the problems shared by both countries.

"Being a native speaker was definitely helpful, both during the presentation and discussions, but also during the social events. What was evident was that literal translation of scientific terminology is not always possible, or clear, and that follow-up discussions are important for ensuring that the scientific content is properly communicated. In addition, gaining general knowledge of the environmental problems in my home country has helped me put my work in Scotland into the wider context.“

Dr Bryan Spears of CEH, supervisor of both Sebastian and Justyna, said, “I thought it was really impressive that Justyna and Seb wanted to present at these meetings in their own language. From the feedback we have had from both meetings it has clearly helped fuel debate and increase interest in our work.”

Copies of both presentations can be viewed at the following links:

• Sebastian's [in German, PDF, 2.9mb]
• Justyna's [in Polish, PDF, 3.7mb]


Related CEH links

CEH 's UK Lake Restoration research

Staff page of Dr Bryan Spears

Thanks to Sebastian Meis and Justyna Olszewska