Imperial College London
Alternate

Professor Guy Woodward - Deputy Head of Department

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Life Sciences (Silwood Park)

Professor of Ecology
 
 
 
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Contact

 

guy.woodward

 
 
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Location

 

MunroSilwood Park

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Gray:2015:10.1111/fwb.12676,
author = {Gray, CE and Thompson, M and Bankier, C and Bell, T and Dumbrell, A and Ledger, M and Lehmann, K and McKew, B and Sayer, C and Shelley, F and Trimmer, M and Warren, S and Woodward, G},
doi = {10.1111/fwb.12676},
journal = {Freshwater Biology},
pages = {2037--2050},
title = {Gene-to-ecosystem impacts of a catastrophic pesticide spill: testing a multilevel bioassessment approach in a river ecosystem},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/fwb.12676},
volume = {61},
year = {2015}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - 1.Pesticides can have strong deleterious impacts in fresh waters, but understanding how these effects cascade through natural ecosystems, from microbes to apex predators, is limited because research that spans multiple levels of biological organisation is rare.2.We report how an accidental insecticide spill altered the structure and functioning of a river across levels ranging from genes to ecosystems. We quantified the impacts on assemblages of microbes, diatoms, macroinvertebrates and fish and measured leaf-litter decomposition rates and microbial functional potential at upstream control and downstream impacted sites 2 months after the spill.3.Both direct and indirect impacts were evident across multiple levels of organisation and taxa, from the base of the food web to higher trophic levels. At the molecular level, differences in functional gene abundance within the impacted sites reflected a combination of direct and indirect effects of the pesticide, via elevated abundances of microbial populations capable of using chlorpyrifos as a resource (i.e. direct effect) and oxidising ammonia released by decaying macroinvertebrate carcasses (i.e. indirect effect).4.At the base of the food chains, diatom taxa found only in the impacted sites were an order-of-magnitude larger in cell size than the largest comparable taxa in control communities, following the near extirpation of their consumers. Population biomass of the key detritivore Gammarus pulex was markedly lower, as was the rate of litter decomposition in the impacted sites. This was partially compensated for, however, by elevated microbial breakdown, suggesting another indirect food-web effect of the toxic spill.5.Although many species exhibited population crashes or local extirpation, total macroinvertebrate biomass and abundance were largely unaffected due to a compensatory elevation in small tolerant taxa such as oligochaetes, and/or taxa which were in their adult aerial life stage at the time of the spill (e.g.
AU  - Gray,CE
AU  - Thompson,M
AU  - Bankier,C
AU  - Bell,T
AU  - Dumbrell,A
AU  - Ledger,M
AU  - Lehmann,K
AU  - McKew,B
AU  - Sayer,C
AU  - Shelley,F
AU  - Trimmer,M
AU  - Warren,S
AU  - Woodward,G
DO  - 10.1111/fwb.12676
EP  - 2050
PY  - 2015///
SN  - 1365-2427
SP  - 2037
TI  - Gene-to-ecosystem impacts of a catastrophic pesticide spill: testing a multilevel bioassessment approach in a river ecosystem
T2  - Freshwater Biology
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/fwb.12676
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/27675
VL  - 61
ER  -
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