Do metals differentiate zooplankton communities in shallow and deep lakes affected by mining tailings? The case of the Fundão dam failure (Brazil)

Gleice de Souza Santos; Edissa Emi Cortez Silva; Gilberto Fonseca Barroso; Vânya Marcia Duarte Pasa; Eneida M Eskinazi-Sant'Anna

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150493

Do metals differentiate zooplankton communities in shallow and deep lakes affected by mining tailings? The case of the Fundão dam failure (Brazil)

Sci Total Environ. 2022 Feb 1;806(Pt 1):150493. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150493. Epub 2021 Sep 23.

Authors

Gleice de Souza Santos¹, Edissa Emi Cortez Silva², Gilberto Fonseca Barroso³, Vânya Marcia Duarte Pasa⁴, Eneida M Eskinazi-Sant'Anna²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biodiversity, Evolution and Environment, Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology, Evolution and Conservation, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, Campus Morro do Cruzeiro, Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais 35400-000, Brazil. Electronic address: santoss.gleice@gmail.com.
² Department of Biodiversity, Evolution and Environment, Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology, Evolution and Conservation, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, Campus Morro do Cruzeiro, Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais 35400-000, Brazil.
³ Department of Oceanography and Ecology, Laboratory of Limnology and Environmental Planning, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Av. Fernando Ferrari, n° 514, Vitória, Espírito Santo 29075-910, Brazil.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, Laboratório de Ensaios de Combustíveis, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Av. Antonio Carlos Ave, 6627, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais 31270-901, Brazil.

PMID: 34844302
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150493

Abstract

The effects of exposure to mining tailings on water quality and biota of tropical lacustrine ecosystems remain poorly understood. We tested the hypothesis that after mining tailing spills, shallow lakes should retain higher metal concentrations in comparison with deep lakes, which might contribute to differentiating species sorting and community structure of zooplankton in both ecosystems. Surveys were performed in 6 Brazilian lakes affected by the Fundão dam failure from October 2018 to September 2019. The shallow lakes showed higher values of turbidity (19.4 ± 12.9 NTU), conductivity (846.5 ± 1727.1 μS.cm^-1), total organic carbon (11.6 ± 4.6 mg.L^-1), total nitrogen (2688.7 ± 2215.6 μg.L^-1), iron (2507.5 ± 726.9 μg.L^-1), aluminum (419.9 ± 166.5 μg.L^-1) and manganese (150.8 ± 146.2 μg.L^-1) and lower zooplankton richness (9.2 ± 3.2) compared to the deep lakes (13.4 ± 3.0), which showed higher cyanobacteria density (84.7 10³ ± 69.3 10³ cel.mL^-1). We recorded negative relationships between zooplankton richness and turbidity, conductivity, iron, zinc and vanadium, indicating that as well as morphometric characteristics of lakes (area and depth) have an important role in zooplankton richness, the coupling between metals and limnological variables represent decisive environmental filters for species sorting of zooplankton. The variation-partitioning analysis showed that limnological variables and metals explained zooplankton composition, highlighting that metals play major influence on zooplankton composition. We suggest that the shallowness of the lakes should had promoted often resuspension of mining tailings that caused increases in metal concentrations in water column. The results indicate that the shallow lakes presented higher vulnerability to mining tailings exposure than the deep lakes, which may have substantially contributed for differentiating zooplankton communities in both ecosystems. This study reveals the need for considering shallow lakes as priority target for conservation among freshwater ecosystems affected by mining tailings.

Keywords: Aquatic habitat; Environmental disaster; Impacts; Lower Doce River basin.

MeSH terms

Animals
Brazil
Ecosystem
Environmental Monitoring
Lakes*
Rivers
Zooplankton*