European fish-based assessment reveals high diversity of systems for determining ecological status of lakes.

Triggered by the adoption of the Water Framework Directive, a variety of fish-based systems were developed throughout Europe to assess the ecological status of lakes. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of all existing systems and summarizes sampling methods, fish community traits (metrics) and the relevant anthropogenic pressures assessed by them. Twenty-one European countries developed fish-based assessment systems. Three countries each developed two distinct systems to approach different ecoregions, either to use different data, or to assess different lake types leading to a total number of 24 systems. The most common approach for the setting of reference conditions, used in seventeen systems, was the utilisation of fish communities in comparably undisturbed natural lakes as reference. Eleven used expert judgment, nine historical data and eight modelled relationships. Fourteen systems combined at least two approaches. The most common fish sampling method was a standardized fishing procedure with multimesh-gillnets. Many countries applied combinations of fishing methods, e.g. non-standard gillnets, fyke nets and electrofishing. Altogether 177 metrics were used for index development and each system combined 2-13 metrics. The most common ones were total standardized catches of number and biomass, relative abundance of Perca fluviatilis, Rutilus rutilus, and Abramis brama, feeding preferences, sensitive species, and non-natives. The pressure-response-relationships for these metrics were supported with both correlations established during system development and scientific publications. However, the metrics and their combinations were highly diverse and no metric was applied universally. Our analysis reveals that most fish-based assessment systems address multiple pressures (eutrophication, hydromorphological alterations, fishery pressure and occurrence of non-natives), whilst few are pressure-specific, tackling only eutrophication or acidification. We argue that the value of fish-based systems for lakes lies in their capacity to capture the effect of many different pressures and their interactions which is lacking for most assessment systems based on other biota.

Response of fish communities to multiple pressures: Development of a total anthropogenic pressure intensity index.

Lakes in Europe are subject to multiple anthropogenic pressures, such as eutrophication, habitat degradation and introduction of alien species, which are frequently inter-related. Therefore, effective assessment methods addressing multiple pressures are needed. In addition, these systems have to be harmonised (i.e. intercalibrated) to achieve common management objectives across Europe. Assessments of fish communities inform environmental policies on ecological conditions integrating the impacts of multiple pressures. However, the challenge is to ensure consistency in ecological assessments through time, across ecosystem types and across jurisdictional boundaries. To overcome the serious comparability issues between national assessment systems in Europe, a total anthropogenic pressure intensity (TAPI) index was developed as a weighted combination of the most common pressures in European lakes that is validated against 10 national fish-based water quality assessment systems using data from 556 lakes. Multi-pressure indices showed significantly higher correlations with fish indices than single-pressure indices. The best-performing index combines eutrophication, hydromorphological alterations and human use intensity of lakes. For specific lake types also biological pressures may constitute an important additional pressure. The best-performing index showed a strong correlation with eight national fish-based assessment systems. This index can be used in lake management for assessing total anthropogenic pressure on lake ecosystems and creates a benchmark for comparison of fish assessments independent of fish community composition, size structure and fishing-gear. We argue that fish-based multiple-pressure assessment tools should be seen as complementary to single-pressure tools offering the major advantage of integrating direct and indirect effects of multiple pressures over large scales of space and time.