Emerging threats and persistent conservation challenges for freshwater biodiversity

By Andrea J. Reid, A. Carlson, I. Creed, E. Eliason, P. Gell, Pieter T. J. Johnson, K. Kidd, T. MacCormack, Julian D. Olden, S. J. Ormerod and 6 more. Biological Reviews of The Cambridge Philosophical Society, 2018

2,976 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In the 12 years since Dudgeon et al. (2006) reviewed major pressures on freshwater ecosystems, the biodiversity crisis in the world's lakes, reservoirs, rivers, streams and wetlands has deepened. While lakes, reservoirs and rivers cover only 2.3% of the Earth's surface, these ecosystems host at least 9.5% of the Earth's described animal species. Furthermore, using the World Wide Fund for Nature's Living Planet Index, freshwater population declines (83% between 1970 and 2014) continue to outpace contemporaneous declines in marine or terrestrial systems. The Anthropocene has brought multiple new and varied threats that disproportionately impact freshwater systems. We document 12 emerging threats to freshwater biodiversity that are either entirely new since 2006 or have since intensified: (i) changing climates; (ii) e‐commerce and invasions; (iii) infectious diseases; (iv) harmful algal blooms; (v) expanding hydropower; (vi) emerging contaminants; (vii) engineered nanomaterials; (viii) microplastic pollution; (ix) light and noise; (x) freshwater salinisation; (xi) declining calcium; and (xii) cumulative stressors. Effects are evidenced for amphibians, fishes, invertebrates, microbes, plants, turtles and waterbirds, with potential for ecosystem‐level changes through bottom‐up and top‐down processes. In our highly uncertain future, the net effects of these threats raise serious concerns for freshwater ecosystems. However, we also highlight opportunities for conservation gains as a result of novel management tools (e.g. environmental flows, environmental DNA) and specific conservation‐oriented actions (e.g. dam removal, habitat protection policies, managed relocation of species) that have been met with varying levels of success. Moving forward, we advocate hybrid approaches that manage fresh waters as crucial ecosystems for human life support as well as essential hotspots of biodiversity and ecological function. Efforts to reverse global trends in freshwater degradation now depend on bridging an immense gap between the aspirations of conservation biologists and the accelerating rate of species endangerment.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/47dd2327041d80f9fcd018a92aaf714c81d0c6b1

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Citations in the corpus

GAPeDNA: Assessing and mapping global species gaps in genetic databases for eDNA metabarcoding (2021, background): “Aquatic ecosystems are increasingly impacted by human activities, threatening their biodiversity and causing major disruptions in their functioning (Cinner et al., 2016; Link & Watson, 2019; Reid et al., 2019).”
Impacts of Plastic Pollution on Ecosystem Services, Sustainable Development Goals, and Need to Focus on Circular Economy and Policy Interventions (2021, background): “The presence of plastics and the small degraded particles in the environment encourages droughts that induce global warming due to carbon emission [362].”
Microplastics in freshwater fishes: Occurrence, impacts and future perspectives (2021, background): “They are also already at high risk from multiple anthropogenic stressors, including nutrient pollution, habitat loss, biological invasions and climate change (Jackson et al., 2016; Ormerod et al., 2010; Reid et al., 2019).”
Surgical face masks as a potential source for microplastic pollution in the COVID-19 scenario (2020, neutral): “The occurrence of plastics and plastic particles in the environment will contribute a drought then after global warming due to carbon emission and disaster risk management will become difficult (Reid et al., 2019; Shen et al., 2020).”
Taxonomic and geographical representation of freshwater environmental DNA research in aquatic conservation (2019, background): “Freshwater ecosystems are considered the most imperilled habitat type worldwide (Boon & Pringle, 2009; Geist, 2011; Reid et al., 2019; Strayer & Dudgeon, 2010; Vörösmarty et al., 2010).”