The Lancang-Mekong River significantly affects the livelihood of residents in the basin as well as the lives of people in other regions of the world in terms of great development potential and its economic and ecological values. In the meanwhile, the...
Freshwater species are highly impacted by human activities and the consequences on ecosystem functioning are still not well understood. In the literature, a multitrophic perspective appears to be key to advance future biodiversity and ecosystem funct...
This paper presents a comprehensive review of the application of Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) approaches exclusively to water-related freshwater ecosystem services. MCDM analysis has been useful in solving conflicts and it works well in t...
Freshwater ecosystems contribute to many ecosystem services, many of which are being threatened by human activities such as land use change, river morphological changes, and climate change. Many disciplines have studied the processes underlying fresh...
Freshwater mussels are threatened with extirpation in North America. They are a sentinel species for ecosystem function and contribute towards many ecosystem services. As mussels require clean water to survive, and since conserving ecosystem services...
Most of the world’s freshwater lake ecosystems are endangered due to intensive land use conditions. They are subjected to anthropogenic stress and severely degraded because of large-scale aquafarming, agricultural expansion, urbanization, and i...
Freshwater aquaculture has a significant role in fish production and biodiversity conservation. Due to climate change, however, the sustenance of fish farms became more challenging, endangering both people and natural values. The establishment of mul...
Fungal biodiversity is still mostly unknown and their presence in particular ecosystems such as freshwater habitats is often underestimated. The ecological role that these fungi play in freshwater environments mainly concerns their activity as decomp...
Long-term protection is needed to secure threatened freshwater ecosystems and the social and biodiversity values they provide. In the face of existing and future pressures, current approaches to freshwater protection are often inadequate for maintain...
Climate change is increasingly affecting freshwater ecosystems across Northern Europe, yet the responses of inland waters differ according to regional climatic and environmental conditions. Latvia, located within the boreo-nemoral transition zone, pr...
Water is the substance that made life on Earth possible. It plays a key role in both the individual and population development of all species. Water is also a critical resource for humans as populations continue to grow and climate change affects glo...
Changing ecological communities in response to anthropogenic activities and climate change has become a worldwide problem. The eutrophication of waterbodies in freshwater and seawater caused by the effects of human activities and nutrient inputs coul...
In the modern era, due to urbanization, industrialization, and anthropogenic activities in the catchment, greenhouse gas (GHG; CO2, CH4, and N2O) emissions from freshwater ecosystems received scientific attention because of global warming and future...
Currently, microplastic pollution poses a great threat to diverse ecosystems. Microplastics can potentially change soil characteristics and impact soil microorganisms, and then affect the production of CO2, CH4 and other greenhouse gases. However, ex...
Freshwater ecosystems are a significant entity that govern the livelihood of people and are an important source of food, employment, and recreation. However, climate change is impacting freshwater ecosystems by altering their natural habitats. The pu...
29 November 2022
Along with accelerating urbanization and associated anthropogenic disturbance, the structure and function of freshwater ecosystems worldwide are substantially damaged. To improve ecosystem health, and thus enhance the ecosystem security of the urban...
Freshwater ecosystems—home to roughly 10% of known species—are losing biodiversity to river-morphology alteration, hydraulic infrastructure, and pollution, yet most ecological network (EN) studies focus on terrestrial systems and overlook...
Rivers provide a range of Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) such as aesthetic values, sense of place and inspiration, which remain insufficiently studied due to challenges associated with the assessment of their subjective and intangible attributes....
Biological invasions are a serious threat to biodiversity conservation, especially in freshwater ecosystems. The American macrophyte Ludwigia hexapetala, which colonizes both the aquatic and bank habitats of lakes, rivers, and canals, is invading man...
Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding has become a powerful, non-invasive method for detecting aquatic organisms. However, optimal sampling strategies for benthic taxa in lentic ecosystems remain unclear. This study evaluated the effectiveness of eD...
Nutrient stoichiometry, particularly the balance of carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P), plays a fundamental role in regulating freshwater ecosystem dynamics, primary production, and biogeochemical cycling. This study presents one of the fir...
Freshwater ecosystems are increasingly degraded by Cladophora blooms, prompting a need to understand its reproductive characteristics for effective control. We combined continuous microscopical monitoring and single-factor and orthogonal experiments,...
Urban freshwater ecosystems have many critical functions, such as providing water to all living things and supporting biodiversity. Factors such as water pollution, increased water consumption, habitat loss, climate change, and drought threaten the h...
The classification of freshwater ecosystems is essential for effective biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management, particularly with increasing threats. We developed an automated approach to mapping and classifying freshwater ecosystem functi...
Climate change is fundamentally transforming global water systems, affecting the availability, quality, and ecological dynamics of water resources. This review synthesizes current scientific understanding of climate change impacts on hydrological sys...
Freshwater mussels play a vital ecological role in aquatic ecosystems, serving as effective natural filters that enhance water quality by removing suspended particles and excess nutrients, thereby preventing eutrophication. Their filtration activity...
With the high demand for freshwater and its vital role in sustaining multiple ecosystem services, it is important to quantify and evaluate freshwater provisioning for various services (e.g., drinking, fisheries, recreation). Research on ecosystem ser...
The monitoring of microplastics pollution in freshwater environments trails behind its practice in marine ecosystems. We evaluated the use of the invasive zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) as a potential bioindicator of microplastic litter in fresh...
The service function of freshwater ecosystem is of great significance for ensuring the water security and the sustainable development of the social economy. However, it is vague how land-use change can influence freshwater ecosystem service flows. In...
8 May 2017
Drought is one of the most widespread extreme climate events with a potential to alter freshwater availability and related ecosystem services. Given the interconnectedness between freshwater availability and many ecosystem services, including food pr...
Ecological monitoring and assessment is fundamental for effective management of ecosystems. As an introduction to this Special Issue, this editorial provides an overview of “Ecological Monitoring, Assessment, and Management in Freshwater Systems”. Th...
Freshwater phytoplankton communities are currently being influenced by ongoing climate change. This study aimed to investigate the effects of warming and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) on chlorophyll-a concentration and physicochemical variables in...
A key challenge in the sustainable management of freshwater is related to non-stationary processes and transboundary requirements. The assessment of freshwater is often hampered due to small-scale analyses, lacking data and with the focus on only its...
Microplastic pollution levels and potential sources of contamination in North Central Appalachia are evaluated to fill a major knowledge gap regarding microplastics in freshwater systems, which lead to negative consequences for the sustainability of...
Kongsfjorden is a small Arctic fjord but with great hydrographic complexity and has changed greatly due to the climate change. Arctic warming has increased melts of sea ice and glaciers that results in higher freshwater content. Microbial community v...
Freshwater habitats and biota are among the most threatened worldwide. In Europe, significant efforts are being taken to counteract detrimental human impacts on nature. In line with these efforts, the MERLIN project funded by the H2020 program focuse...
The feeding characteristics of the nase, based on its mouth morphology and feeding behavior related to aquatic habitat substrata sediments make this fish a biological uptake vector for microplastics in freshwater ecosystems. Fibers may have limited a...
Sustainable water resource management is a wicked problem, fraught with uncertainties, an indeterminate scope, and divergent social values and interests among stakeholders. To facilitate better management of Southeast Asia’s transboundary Sesan, Seko...
In this work, we develop and test proxy-based diagnostic tools for comparing freshwater ecosystem services (FWES) risks across an international array of freshwater ecosystems. FWES threats are increasing rapidly under pressure from population, climat...
The ecosystem services (ES) approach offers an integrated perspective of social-ecological systems, suitable for holistic assessments of mining impacts. Yet for ES models to be policy-relevant, methodological consensus in mining contexts is needed. W...
Ecological information regarding trophic patterns and the inherent structure of freshwater aquatic communities is considered fundamental in ecological research. In this study, the trophic patterns of the Greek freshwater fish fauna, belonging to the...
Non-indigenous fish species (NIFS) can cause severe ecological impacts on the invaded ecosystems and are considered as one of the leading factors of freshwater biodiversity loss. Unraveling the spatial overlap between NIFS and critically endangered (...
This paper assesses how residents of a developing city in the Global South, recognize and value the multiple diverse cultural ecosystem services associated with freshwater ecosystems, as provided by different landscape features originating in an urba...
The quality of aquatic ecosystems is a major public health concern. The assessment and management of a freshwater system and the ecological monitoring of microorganisms that are present in it can provide indicators of the environment and water qualit...
Sustainable use of freshwater resources for human civilization needs requires the assessment and monitoring of freshwater health, and bacterial communities from riverbed sediments have been shown to be susceptible to chronic anthropogenic disturbance...
Aquatic litter decomposition is highly dependent on contributions and interactions at different trophic levels. The invasion of alien aquatic organisms like the channeled apple snail (Pomacea canaliculata) might lead to changes in the decomposition p...
The types and intensification of land use in the watershed affect the living organisms in aquatic ecosystems differently; this impact will also vary according to temporal and spatial scales. Understanding these interactions is crucial in the design o...
Microplastic pollution has become a global concern, with potential negative impacts on various ecosystems and wildlife species. Among these species, ducks (Anas platyrhynchos) are particularly vulnerable due to their feeding habits and proximity to a...
Empirical evidence suggests that the frequency/intensity of extreme weather events might increase in a warming climate. It remains unclear how these events quantitatively impact dissolved organic carbon (DOC), a pool approximately equal to CO2 in the...
Fish are important elements of aquatic ecosystems. Their communities naturally follow the river continuum and have been well described in the western European freshwater watersheds. In regions of higher endemism, such as the Balkan Peninsula, the wid...
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