Temperature-driven and discharge-driven variability of organic micropollutants in a large urban river and its implications for risk-based monitoring.

Urban rivers are exposed to an increasing load of organic micropollutants from wastewater effluent posing an ecological as well as public health hazard. One-off surveys can capture a snapshot of the pollution profile but fail to reveal the full scale of spatial and temporal heterogeneity. In the present study, 41 micropollutants (non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID), antihypertensives, antiepileptic, antidiabetic, antibiotics, iodinated contrast media (ICM), corrosion inhibitors, pesticides) were monitored every two weeks for one-year upstream and downstream of the Budapest metropolitan area in Danube River (336 samples total). ICMs, benzotriazoles and metamizole degradation products were detected in highest concentration regularly exceeding 100 ng/L. Median concentration of other pharmaceuticals ranged from <1 to 26 ng/L, while pesticides were typically below 10 ng/L. Variability of micropollutant concentration was primarily temporal, exhibiting two different patterns: (1) inverse correlation to river discharge, observed for corrosion inhibitors and carbamazepine (r= -0.505 to -0.665) or (2) inverse correlation to water temperature, observed primarily for ICMs, antihypertensives and antibiotics, r= -0.654 to -0.904). Temperature dependence was also significant after correcting for river discharge. Relative increase of pharmaceuticals was 2-134% after the metropolitan area, partially explained by emission estimates calculated from retail data and metabolization rates. The concentration of five ICMs (iopamidol in 100, iodixanol in 96, diatrizoate in 22, iomeprol in 21 and iohexol 13% of the samples) and two NSAIDs (ibuprofen and diclofenac (in 31.5 and 23% of the samples) exceeded the predicted no environmental effect concentration, posing a risk to algae (HQ=1.2-6) and fish (HQ=1.4-1.9), respectively. Results suggest that risk-based monitoring and risk management efforts should focus on ICMs, NSAIDs and industrial chemicals, taking into account that sampling in cold periods and during low flow provides the worst-case estimates.

Genetic diversity of the submerged macrophyte Ceratophyllum demersum depends on habitat hydrology and habitat fragmentation.

The adaptability of plant populations to a changing environment depends on their genetic diversity, which in turn is influenced by the degree of sexual reproduction and gene flow from distant areas. Aquatic macrophytes can reproduce both sexually and asexually, and their reproductive fragments are spread in various ways (e.g. by water). Although these plants are obviously exposed to hydrological changes, the degree of vulnerability may depend on the types of their reproduction and distribution, as well as the hydrological differences of habitats. The aim of this study was to investigate the genetic diversity of the cosmopolitan macrophyte Ceratophyllum demersum in hydrologically different aquatic habitats, i.e. rivers and backwaters separated from the main river bed to a different extent. For this purpose, the first microsatellite primer set was developed for this species. Using 10 developed primer pairs, a high level of genetic variation was explored in C. demersum populations. Overall, more than 80% of the loci were found to be polymorphic, a total of 46 different multilocus genotypes and 18 private alleles were detected in the 63 individuals examined. The results demonstrated that microsatellite polymorphism in this species depends on habitat hydrology. The greatest genetic variability was revealed in populations of rivers, where flowing water provides constant longitudinal connections with distant habitats. The populations of the hydrologically isolated backwaters showed the lowest microsatellite polymorphism, while plants from an oxbow occasionally flooded by the main river had medium genetic diversity. The results highlight that in contrast to species that spread independently of water flow or among hydrologically isolated water bodies, macrophytes with exclusive or dominant hydrochory may be most severely affected by habitat fragmentation, for example due to climate change.

Exploring the trend effects of diffuse anthropogenic pollution in a large river passing through a densely populated area.

The detection of non-point pollution in large rivers requires high-frequency sampling over a longer period of time, which, however presumably provides data with large spatial and temporal variance. Variability may mean that data sets recorded upstream and downstream from a densely populated area overlap, suggesting at first glance that the urban area did not affect water quality. This study presents a simple way to explore trend-like effects of non-point pollution in the Danube based on data that varied strongly in space and time. For one year, biweekly sampling was carried out upstream and downstream from a large city with negligible emission of untreated wastewater and the surrounding settlements, industrial and agricultural areas. Although most of the values of the 34 examined physicochemical characteristics fell within the range of data previously published for the Danube, and the mean values of all parameters indicated unpolluted surface water, different water quality was revealed upstream and downstream from the metropolitan area at each sampling time. Since the physicochemical characteristics causing the separation also differed from time to time, univariate tests and consensus ordination were used to determine which variables changed similarly during most of the examined period. With this evaluation method, several diffuse pollutants of anthropogenic origin contaminating the Danube in the long term were identified, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphate, chloride, potassium and vanadium. The results demonstrated that trend-like effects of non-point pollution can be detected even in a large river, where physicochemical measurements can vary strongly in space and time.

Planktonic and epilithic prokaryota community compositions in a large temperate river reflect climate change related seasonal shifts.

In freshwaters, microbial communities are of outstanding importance both from ecological and public health perspectives, however, they are threatened by the impact of global warming. To reveal how different prokaryotic communities in a large temperate river respond to environment conditions related to climate change, the present study provides the first detailed insight into the composition and spatial and year-round temporal variations of planktonic and epilithic prokaryotic community. Microbial diversity was studied using high-throughput next generation amplicon sequencing. Sampling was carried out monthly in the midstream and the littoral zone of the Danube, upstream and downstream from a large urban area. Result demonstrated that river habitats predominantly determine the taxonomic composition of the microbiota; diverse and well-differentiated microbial communities developed in water and epilithon, with higher variance in the latter. The composition of bacterioplankton clearly followed the prolongation of the summer resulting from climate change, while the epilithon community was less responsive. Rising water temperatures was associated with increased abundances of many taxa (such as phylum Actinobacteria, class Gammaproteobacteria and orders Synechococcales, Alteromonadales, Chitinophagales, Pseudomonadales, Rhizobiales and Xanthomonadales), and the composition of the microbiota also reflected changes of several further environmental factors (such as turbidity, TOC, electric conductivity, pH and the concentration of phosphate, sulphate, nitrate, total nitrogen and the dissolved oxygen). The results indicate that shift in microbial community responding to changing environment may be of crucial importance in the decomposition of organic compounds (including pollutants and xenobiotics), the transformation and accumulation of heavy metals and the occurrence of pathogens or antimicrobial resistant organisms.

Significant impact of seasonality, verticality and biofilm on element accumulation of aquatic macrophytes.

Submersed macrophytes accumulate large amounts of macro- and trace elements from the environment and, therefore, are frequently used as indicators of water pollution and tools to remove pollutants from contaminated waters. This study provides evidences that the quantity of macro- and trace elements accumulated in the macrophyte Ceratophyllum demersum depends strongly on the seasonality, on the vertical position of the plant material and on the biofilm cover. Element contents of macrophytes with and without biofilm cover and that of vertical plant sections were investigated by an ICP-MS technique in three different habitats, at the beginning and at the end of the vegetation period. Results demonstrated that the element concentrations of Ceratophyllum demersum dropped to one-half and one-eighth by the end of the summer; and the amount of certain elements in the lower part of plants were up to six times higher than in the upper and in plants with well-developed epiphytic microbial community 2-5-fold higher than in plants without biofilm. These results help in phytoremediation practice and in setting up future biomonitoring studies. When it is necessary to calculate the exact amount of elements which can be accumulated by plants in a polluted environment or should be removed from a contaminated water by harvesting macrophytes, it is of high importance to consider the month of the study, the plant parts harvested and the biofilm cover.

Multilevel comparison of dendrograms: a new method with an application for genetic classifications.

Procedures are currently available for the evaluation of hierarchical classifications of produce tree dissimilarities or consensus dendrograms. Some tests of cluster validity operate by comparing all possible partitions from a tree with a reference partition. We propose an exhaustive search procedure to compare all partitions from one dendrogram with all partitions derived from the other to detect hierarchical levels at which the two dendrograms show maximum agreement. The method is illustrated using RAPD and microsatellite data in order to detect clones in reed populations. The utility of our approach is its ability to reveal extra information in different genetic data sets which would be hidden otherwise. The method is also useful in any field of science where hierarchical clustering is the main research tool and comparison of results is an objective. Artificial and actual dendrograms, together with randomly simulated trees were used to compare the performance of five classical coefficients of partition dissimilarity. The simulations showed that when meaningful group structure is lacking, then the five coefficients are in full disagreement, but they perform similarly otherwise.