Daniel Morant

University of Valencia | UV · Instituto Cavanilles de Biodiversidad y Biología Evolutiva

Saline shallow lakes may play an important role in carbon exchange with the atmosphere, but their alteration may change carbon balance and greenhouse gas emissions patterns. This study investigated the relationship between carbon metabolic processes and environmental factors, focusing on alterations in salinity, hydroperiod length, and trophic stat...

Karstic lakes on gypsum are a very peculiar type of ecosystem declared as a Habitat Type of Community Interest (Type 3190) by the European Habitats Directive. They are usually small lakes but often displaying a high relative depth, located in active gypsum karst areas, with a high saturation of Ca2⁺ and SO4²⁻ in its waters. These lakes can usually...

Permanent ponds are valuable freshwater systems and biodiversity hotspots. They provide diverse ecosystem services (ES), including water quality improvement and supply, food provisioning and biodiversity support. Aquatic subsidies provide a high nutritional quality, energy density and nutrient concentration. Among those, emerging insects are rich i...

Karstic lakes on gypsum are a very peculiar type of ecosystem declared as a Habitat Type of Community Interest (Type 3190) by the European Habitats Directive. They are usually small lakes but often displaying a high relative depth, located in active gypsum karst areas, with a high saturation of Ca 2 ⁺ and SO 4 ²⁻ in its waters. These lakes can usua...

Understanding the metabolic processes governing carbon biogeochemistry in inland brackish and saline shallow lakes is crucial for assessing their capacity to mitigate climate change. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between carbon biotic processes, metabolic carbon balances, and environmental factors such as salinity, hydroperiod, a...

Wetlands are valuable ecosystems providing many ecosystem services. Among others, they provide a high potential for carbon storage, as anaerobic conditions reduce the decomposition of organic matter, resulting in high carbon stocks. Wetlands worldwide are expected to store 20-30% of the estimated global soil carbon while only covering 5-8% of the w...

Permanent ponds are valuable freshwater systems and biodiversity hotspots. They provide diverse ecosystem services (ES), including water quality improvement and supply, food provisioning and biodiversity support. This is despite being under significant pressure from multiple anthropogenic stressors and the impacts of ongoing global change. However,...

Permanent ponds represent important habitats for aquatic biodiversity and provide vital ecosystem services as key elements for blue landscape connectivity. Although mostly neglected in management programmes, protection schemes and biodiversity studies in general, ponds constitute habitats with high α- and spatial β-diversity, providing unique habit...

Ponds, whilst being mostly neglected in management and protection plans, can constitute habitats with high α- and β-diversity, including many rare and endemic species. In heterogeneous landscapes, ponds can also contribute to habitat connectivity and enhance γ-diversity whilst delivering many ecosystem services. Semi-aquatic insects are one of the...

Whilst being small and shallow, permanent ponds provide valuable habitats for a multitude of organisms as well as provide habitats for animals like aquatic insects and others, including many rare species. These ponds, which were often neglected in limnological studies, were the core of our joint project, the 3rd freshwater project - EUROPONDS in or...

Physical and chemical alterations may affect the microbiota of soils as much as the specific presence of toxic pollutants. The relationship between the microbial diversity patterns and the soil quality in a Mediterranean context is studied here to test the hypothesis that soil microbiota is strongly affected by the level of anthropogenic soil alter...

Coastal and deltaic wetlands are among the most effective ecosystems for climate regulation through carbon sequestration and storage. The Ebro Delta is an example of a landscape that attempts to integrate nature protection with economic development that is threatened by global change. The functionality of Ebro Delta wetlands is deteriorating due to...

A paradigm in carbon cycling science predicts that sea-level rise will enhance carbon accumulation in an apparent negative carbon-climate feedback1,2. However, ecosystems exposed to combinations of stressors and subsidies – such as saltwater intrusion and sea-level rise – may adapt, transition to an alternative state, or experience a decline in fun...

The use of proxies for ecosystem function in biomonitoring is desirable to move towards more holistic strategies. Next-generation sequencing of environmental DNA can clearly contribute to these advances. This research is part of a project aimed to use constructed wetlands (CWs), managed by the company Global Omnium (https://www.globalomnium.com/Gro...

The monitoring of the structure and potential function of the prokaryotic assemblages of aquatic ecosystems can be used for the assessment of ecosystem health. In this work, we analysed by 16S rRNA gene amplicon massive sequencing the aquatic and sediment prokaryotic communities inhabiting three wetlands located in Ebro river Delta (Spain), which d...

The features of lentic waterbodies largely depend on the surrounding environment. Mediterranean coastal lagoons have been historically altered, with their catchment being highly modified for agricultural, livestock, or urban uses. Changes in land uses induce pressures that impact the waterbodies and alter their ecological status. The objectives of...

This work aims to validate the wide use of an algorithm developed using genetic programing (GP) techniques allowing to discern between water and non-water pixels using the near infrared band and different thresholds. A total of 34 wetlands and shallow lakes of 18 ecological types were used for validation. These include marshes, salt ponds, and sali...

This poster was a contribution by Juan Rubio-Ríos and Encarnación Fenoy from EUROPONDS project to the online Symposium about "Researches in Experimental Sciences" ("IX Simposio de Investigación en Ciencias Experimentales") from University of Almería in Spain.

Permanent freshwater and brackish marshes are the typical wetland type of the Mediterranean Spanish coast. Historically, alterations to the original morphological and hydrological characteristics of some these ecosystems have increased their trophic status, which could influence the carbon (C) balance, while other ecosystems remain close to their n...

Deltaic wetlands are highly productive ecosystems, which characteristically can act as C-sinks. However, they are among the most threatened ecosystems, being very vulnerable to global change, and require special attention towards its conservation. Knowing their climate change mitigating potential, conservation measures should also be oriented with...

En este trabajo se muestra el patrón del perfil metabólico de las comunidades microbianas acuáticas de diferentes lagunas de España según su posición dentro de un gradiente de salinidad. Para su determinación se han utilizado Placas Biolog – Ecoplates con 31 fuentes de carbono diferentes. La metabolización de cada compuesto se puede seguir en el ti...

Constructed wetlands are commonly used for sewage treatment. However, as the natural processes operate, these artificial ecosystems can also be used to enhance the equalization of water features to those of the receiving environments, thus reducing the impacts of the treated water on the natural systems. Here, we studied, by a year-round survey, th...

Wetlands are among the most biologically active ecosystems on Earth, playing an important role in the global carbon cycle. Methane production in wetlands, resulting from anaerobic respiration of organic matter, accounts for an important part of natural sources of methane. In this work, we have evaluated the methane release rates of saline shallow l...