Response of Macrophyte Diversity in Coastal Lakes to Watershed Land Use and Salinity Gradient

Mirosław Grzybowski; Paweł Burandt; Katarzyna Glińska-Lewczuk; Sylwia Lew; Krystian Obolewski

doi:10.3390/ijerph192416620

Response of Macrophyte Diversity in Coastal Lakes to Watershed Land Use and Salinity Gradient

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Dec 10;19(24):16620. doi: 10.3390/ijerph192416620.

Authors

Mirosław Grzybowski¹, Paweł Burandt², Katarzyna Glińska-Lewczuk², Sylwia Lew³, Krystian Obolewski⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Tourism, Recreation and Ecology, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Oczapowskiego Str. 5, 10-719 Olsztyn, Poland.
² Department of Water Management and Climatology, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Łódzki Sq. 2, 10-719 Olsztyn, Poland.
³ Department of Microbiology and Mycology, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Oczapowskiego Str. 1a, 10-719 Olsztyn, Poland.
⁴ Department of Hydrobiology, University of Kazimierz Wielki in Bydgoszcz, 85-090 Bydgoszcz, Poland.

Abstract

Coastal lakes are subject to multiple stressors, among which land use, hydrological connectivity, and salinity have the greatest effect on their biodiversity. We studied the effects that various land cover types (CORINE) of coastal lake watersheds had on macrophyte diversity in ten coastal lakes along the southern Baltic coast as characterised by twelve phytocenotic indices: these being a number of communities, Shannon-Wiener diversity, evenness, and indices of taxonomic distinctiveness of plant communities: vegetation coverage; colonisation index; share of the phytolittoral area in the total lake area, as well as shares of nympheides, pondweeds, charophytes, marine, emerged and submerged communities in the total lake area. The effects were checked for three groups of lakes distinguished by differences in salinity-freshwater (F, 5), transitional (T, 4), and brackish (B, 1)-in which a total of 48 macrophyte communities were identified. The most abundant in aquatic phytocoenoses were lakes of T type. A partial least squares regression model (PLS-R) showed a stronger impact of land-use types in immediate vicinities and entire watersheds than the impact of physico-chemical properties of water on phytocenotic indices in the lakes. Macrophyte diversity was relatively low in urban and agricultural catchments and relatively high in forest and wetland areas. Agriculture had a negative impact on the number of macrophyte communities in F lakes and, in T lakes, on the number of macrophyte communities, biodiversity, evenness, and proportion of emerged, submerged, and marine communities. Urban areas contributed to lower values of evenness, vegetation coverage, and share of marine communities in F, but, in T, to lower the number of macrophyte communities, evenness, and proportion of submerged and marine communities. Our results confirm the significant impact of land use on macrophyte diversity in coastal aquatic ecosystems. Combined analysis of anthropogenic and natural descriptors is a prerequisite for analysing human threats to biodiversity in coastal lakes. Macrophyte community-based measures of biodiversity are sensitive indicators of anthropogenic impact on the ecological condition of coastal ecosystems.

Keywords: coastal lakes; hydrological connectivity; land use; macrophyte diversity; phytocenotic indices; salinity; watershed.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Biodiversity
Ecosystem*
Forests
Humans
Salinity*
Wetlands

Grants and funding

Project financially co-supported by the Minister of Education and Science under the program entitled “Regional Initiative of Excellence” for the years 2019–2023, Project No. 010/RID/2018/19, amount of funding 12,000,000 PLN. The results presented in this paper were obtained as part of a comprehensive study financed by the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, Department of Water Management and Climatology (grant No. 30.610.008-110).