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Scientific article
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English

The M-NIP: a macrophyte-based nutrient index for ponds

Contributors

Sager, Lionel; Lachavanne, Jean-Bernard

Published in

Hydrobiologia, vol. 634, no. 1, p. 43-63

Collection

  • Open Access - Licence nationale Springer

Publication date

2009

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.

Keywords

  • Aquatic vegetation
  • Bioassessment
  • Eutrophication
  • Water quality
  • EU Water Framework Directive

UNIGE affiliation entities

UNIGE research groups

Citation (ISO format)

SAGER, Lionel, LACHAVANNE, Jean-Bernard. The M-NIP: a macrophyte-based nutrient index for ponds. In: Hydrobiologia, 2009, vol. 634, n° 1, p. 43–63. doi: 10.1007/s10750-009-9899-1

Main files (1)

Article (Published version)

Identifiers

Additional URL for this publication

http://www.springerlink.com/content/62gr5tk4438024q5/fulltext.html
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Technical informations

Creation

05/10/2009 15:47:00

First validation

05/10/2009 15:47:00

Update

14/03/2023 15:15:57

Status update

14/03/2023 15:15:57

Last indexation

29/10/2024 12:23:39
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