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The M-NIP: a macrophyte-based Nutrient Index for Ponds

  • POND CONSERVATION
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Abstract

In Swiss ponds, eutrophication represents one of the major threats to biodiversity. A biological method to assess the trophic state would, therefore, be particularly useful for monitoring purposes. Macrophytes have already been successfully used to evaluate the trophic state of rivers and lakes. Considering their colonizing abilities and their roles in pond ecosystem structure and function, macrophytes should be included in any assessment methods as required by the European Water Framework Directive. Vegetation survey and water quality data for 114 permanent ponds throughout Switzerland were analysed to define indicator values for 113 species including 47 with well-defined ecological response to total water phosphorus (TP). Using indicator values and species cover, a Macrophyte Nutrient Index for Ponds (M-NIP) was calculated for each site and assessed with both the original pond data set and a limited validation data set. The resulting index performed better when considering only species with narrow responses to TP gradient and was more applicable, but less accurate when including all species. Despite these limitations, the M-NIP is a valuable and easy tool to assess and monitor the nutrient status of Swiss ponds and was shown to be robust and relatively sensitive to slight changes in phosphorus loading with a validation subset.

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Acknowledgments

We thank our colleagues Nathalie Menetrey, Dominique Auderset Joye, Christiane Ilg, Gilles Carron, and Amael Paillex for their help with the fieldwork. Thanks also to Pascale Nicolet for improving the english style and valuable comments on the manuscript. We are also grateful to the “Bourse Augustin Lombard” of the “Société de physique et d’histoire naturelle de Genève (SPHN)” and the “Office of Environment and Energy” of Kanton Luzern for their financial support. Finally, thanks to the SECOE of the Canton de Genève and SESA of the Canton de Vaud for providing us some of the chemical analyses of the water samples. This paper was realized with data in part collected in a study financially supported by the “Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Ecology and Aquatic Biology, University of Geneva, Ch. des Clochettes 18, 1206, Geneva, Switzerland

    Lionel Sager & Jean-Bernard Lachavanne

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  1. Lionel Sager
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  2. Jean-Bernard Lachavanne
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Correspondence to Lionel Sager.

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Guest editors: B. Oertli, R. Cereghino, A. Hull & R. Miracle

Pond Conservation: From Science to Practice. 3rd Conference of the European Pond Conservation Network, Valencia, Spain, 14–16 May 2008

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Sager, L., Lachavanne, JB. The M-NIP: a macrophyte-based Nutrient Index for Ponds. Hydrobiologia 634, 43–63 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-009-9899-1

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