Multiple stressors in agricultural streams: interactions among sediment addition, nutrient enrichment and water abstraction: Sediment, nutrients & water abstraction

Abstract

1. Many ecosystems are influenced simultaneously by multiple stressors, and the consequences of stressors are often unpredictable on the basis of knowledge of single effects. Agriculture affects streams world-wide via nutrient enrichment, elevated fine sediment and water abstraction for irrigation, but the combined impacts of these stressors are unknown. 2. We manipulated all three stressors simultaneously in an 18-day experiment and determined their individual and pair-wise combined effects on benthic invertebrates, algal biomass and leaf decay. We added nutrients (phosphorus plus nitrogen) and/or fine sediment (grain size 0·2 mm) to 18 experimental stream channels (dimensions 250 × 15 × 15 cm) supplied with water from a nearby stream. Three sediment and three nutrient treatments (high, intermediate, natural) were applied to each of six channels while flow was reduced by 80% in half the channels. Invertebrates (composition, abundance) and algae (chlorophyll a) were assayed using ceramic tile substrata and leaf decay was assayed using bundled leaves of a native shrub. Invertebrates colonizing leaf packs were also sampled. 3. Effects of sediment addition and flow reduction on biological response parameters were twice as common as nutrient enrichment effects. Nutrient enrichment increased total invertebrate abundance on tiles, algal biomass accrual and leaf decay rates, whereas both sediment addition (at the highest level) and flow reduction had mostly negative effects (e.g. reduced algal biomass, invertebrate abundance and/or taxonomic richness). 4. Stressors interacted often, and interactions between sediment and flow were particularly common. The negative impact of added sediment on aquatic biota was stronger at reduced flow, especially on tile substrata that were more exposed to the current than leaf-pack substrata. 5. Synthesis and applications. Our key findings imply that abstracting water from a stream already subjected to high fine sediment inputs may have far worse effects on the invertebrate fauna than abstraction from a similar stream with lower sediment levels. Aquatic resource managers should be aware of this important interaction between multiple stressors.