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4. Moving from the lab to the landscape: Extending the role of ecology in risk assessment (TU4/7) Parameters driving composition of invertebrate communities in agricultural streams. Liess, Matthias1, v.d. Ohe, Peter1, Holmes, Chris2, Ball, Maria2, Biggs, Jeremy3, Gonzales-Valero, Juan4, Hendley, Paul4, Maund, Stephen4, 1 UFZ - Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany2 Waterborne Environmental, Inc., Leesburg, USA3 The Ponds Conservation Trust, Oxford, United Kingdom4 Syngenta Crop Protection, Basel, Switzerland ABSTRACT- One of the key issues that is continually raised in discussions about the development of aquatic risk assessments for plant protection products is - What are we trying to protect - Whilst for many areas of Europe, biological monitoring data are available from Water Authorities and research studies, until now, these data have not been used to inform higher-tier risk assessment procedures for pesticides. In this study, we collated information that has been collected to characterize the aquatic communities of streams in and around the agricultural landscapes of the Braunschweig region of Lower Saxony, Niedersachsen in Germany. Our aim was to determine whether landscape factors could be used to predict the assemblages present in streams. Comprehensive information on abiotic parameters and invertebrate communities in streams within agricultural catchments areas were available and used to identify parameters relevant for the composition of aquatic invertebrate community. The parameters determining the most invertebrate occurrence were stream morphology, runoff related pesticide input from arable land and distance to pristine stream sections. Such information could be used in the future to aid landscape management strategies for sustainable agriculture whilst maximising invertebrate richness. Key words: pesticide, field effect, invertebrate community, risk assessment |
