Edurne EstévezUniversity of Innsbruck/ Universidad del País Vasco
Edurne Estévez
About
17
Publications
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120
Citations
Citations since 2017
Publications
Publications (17)
Human activities are not only increasing salinization of rivers, they might also be altering the temporal dynamics of salinity. Here, we assess the effect of human activities on the temporal dynamics of electrical conductivity (EC) in 91 Spanish rivers using daily measures of EC from 2007 to 2011. We expected rivers weakly affected by human activit...
Dissolved organic matter (DOM) represents the largest pool of organic carbon in fluvial ecosystems. The majority of DOM in rivers is of terrigenous origin—making DOM composition highly dependent on vegetation cover and soil properties. While deforestation is still a worldwide anthropogenic phenomenon, current land cover change in temperate regions...
Changes in land cover are one of the most extensive and influential human impacts on fluvial ecosystems. In this study, we assessed how changes in food resource quantity and type linked to forest cover affect mountain stream multitrophic macroinvertebrate community size structure. We tested whether the total organism biomass (size spectrum intercep...
Coordinated distributed experiments (CDEs) enable the study of large-scale ecological patterns in geographically dispersed areas, while simultaneously providing broad academic and personal benefits for the participants. However, the effective involvement of early-career researchers (ECRs) presents major challenges. Here, we analyze the benefits and...
Artículo publicado en el Boletín de la Red de Seguimiento del Cambio global en Parques nacionales Nº7 donde presentamos la Red de Seguimiento del cambio global en
los ecosistemas acuáticos del Parque Nacional de los Picos de Europa.
Desde el año 2012 el Instituto de Hidráulica Ambiental de la Universidad de Cantabria
(IHCantabria) ha implementado y...
Coordinated distributed experiments (CDEs) allow the study of large-scale ecological patterns in geographically dispersed areas, providing at the same time broad benefits for the participants. However, the effective involvement of early-stage career researchers (ECRs) confronts major challenges. Here, we analyze the benefits and challenges of the f...
Understanding how different food resources sustain stream food webs is fundamental towards increasing our knowledge on trophic structure and energy flow pathways in fluvial ecosystems. Food webs in small mountain streams are sustained by autochthonous (instream primary production) and allochthonous (inputs from the terrestrial ecosystem) organic re...
River ecosystem metabolism (REM) is a promising cost-effective measure of ecosystem functioning, as it integrates many different ecosystem processes and is affected by both rapid (primary productivity) and slow (organic matter decomposition) energy channels of the riverine food web. We estimated REM in 41 river reaches in Deva-Cares catchment (nort...
The salinization of freshwaters is a global water quality problem that leads to the biological degradation of aquatic ecosystems. However, little is known about the spatial extent of freshwater salinization and the relative contribution of each human activity (e.g. agriculture, urbanization, mining or shale-gas extraction). Here, we investigated en...
Large variability in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) uptake rates has been reported for headwater streams, but the causes of this variability are still not well understood. Here we assessed acetate uptake rates across 11 European streams comprising different ecoregions by using whole-reach pulse acetate additions. We evaluated the main climatic and...
Streams play a key role in the global biogeochemical cycles, processing material from adjacent terrestrial systems and transporting it downstream. However, the drivers of stream metabolism, especially those acting at broad spatial scales, are still not well understood. Moreover, stream metabolism can be affected by hydrological changes associated w...
Mountain streams play a key role in the conservation of aquatic biodiversity and key ecosystem services; however human activities are threatening these ecosystems as mountain areas become more and more developed and intensively used. Many of these streams are not considered in current national monitoring programs due to their small catchment area....
Projects
Projects (4)
The Urban algae project aims to study the ecological status of urban ponds and their ecosystem services together with the citizen´s perceptions. To this end, we will combine a sampling campaign during the summer 2018 in multiple locations across Europe with an online citizen survey questionnaire. With this set-up, we want to know what the public thinks about their ponds and if this is related to the ecological status of the relevant ponds.
The second important goal of this initiative is to create an international collaborative network, encouraging young and early career scientists in Europe. This project provides an excellent chance to actively participate in an interdisciplinary project and meet other young researchers!
The objective of the SCRIPt Project is to determine the effects of global change (increment in the temperature regime, natural ecosystems partition, changes on land-uses, etc.) on mountain aquatic ecosystems. SCRIPt covers the fluvial network and the most important lakes of the Europe Peaks Range (northern Spain). These ecosystems are excellent observatories for the evaluation of global change effects because they are highly sensitive to environmental variations.
To achieve this objective, SCRIPt operates a monitoring a network composed by 8 gauge stations that record continuous measurements of flow and water temperature, and 2 terrestrial stations that take pictures of the riparian area. To complete this infrastructure, invertebrate, diatom and fish communities and river metabolism (primary production and respiration) will be also characterized in 13 study sites located in rivers (10) and springs (3). In these 13 sites we also apply the novel technique "environmental DNA" (eDNA) to characterize the aquatic biodiversity.
Finally, all the information obtained from the aquatic and terrestrial sensors (environmental data) and field surveys (biological data, monitored since 2012) is uploaded in near-real time to a free access web site (http://picoseuropa.ihcantabria.com/).
Results from SCRIPt project will complete a large database with inter-annual replication that will allow the evaluation of global change effects on biodiversity and functioning in aquatic ecosystems from mountain areas. With this information, we will be able to discriminate between changes due to the natural variability of aquatic environments from those changes produced by anthropic alterations.
SCRIPt Project is supported by the Biodiversity Foundation, from the Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition, and the Interautonomic Consortium of the Europe Peaks National Park.
- to create synergistic interactions among young limnologists that lead to new knowledge, promote networking & experience on project managing
- to examine the variability in carbon uptake kinetics and metabolism across regions and seasons
