Heavy ionic pollution disrupts assemblages of algae, macroinvertebrates and riparian vegetation.

Urban streams display consistent ecological symptoms that commonly express degraded biological, physical, and chemical conditions: the urban stream syndrome (USS). Changes linked to the USS result in consistent declines in the abundance and richness of algae, invertebrates, and riparian vegetation. In this paper, we assessed the impacts of extreme ionic pollution from an industrial effluent in an urban stream.

Acanthocephalan parasites reflect ecological status of freshwater ecosystem.

Acanthocephalans' position in food webs, in close interaction with free-living species, could provide valuable information about freshwater ecosystem health through the viability of the parasites' host populations. We explored Pomphorhynchus laevis cystacanths' and adults' intensities of infection, and the prevalence of infected hosts respectively in their Gammarus pulex intermediate hosts and Squalius cephalus definitive hosts in a Mediterranean river. First, we analysed the relationship between P.

Effects of Urbanization on Plant-Pollinator Interactions in the Tropics: An Experimental Approach Using Exotic Plants.

Land-use changes through urbanization and biological invasions both threaten plant-pollinator networks. Urban areas host modified bee communities and are characterized by high proportions of exotic plants. Exotic species, either animals or plants, may compete with native species and disrupt plant-pollinator interactions.

Effects of catchment area and nutrient deposition regime on phytoplankton functionality in alpine lakes.

High mountain lakes are a network of sentinels, sensitive to any events occurring within their waterbodies, their surrounding catchment and their airshed. In this paper, we investigate how catchments impact the taxonomic and functional composition of phytoplankton communities in high mountain lakes, and how this impact varies according to the atmospheric nutrient deposition regime. For two years, we sampled the post snow-melt and the late summer phytoplankton, with a set of biotic and abiotic parameters, in six French alpine lakes with differing catchments (size and vegetation cover) and contrasting nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) deposition regimes.

No association between the use of Bti for mosquito control and the dynamics of non-target aquatic invertebrates in French coastal and continental wetlands.

The environmental safety of Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. israelensis (Bti) is still controversial, mainly because most of the previous field studies on its undesired effects were spatially limited and did not address the relationship between community similarity and application time and frequency. No general statement can therefore be drawn on the usage conditions of Bti that insure protection of non-target organisms.

Ecology of leishmaniasis in the South of France. 22. Reliability and representativeness of 12 Phlebotomus ariasi, P. perniciosus and Sergentomyia minuta (Diptera: Psychodidae) sampling stations in Vallespir (eastern French Pyrenees region).

This study was conducted around Céret (Pyrénées-Orientales, mean elevation 200 m) to test the statistical reliability of 12 stations devoted to sampling the Leishmania infantum vectors Phlebotomus ariasi and P. perniciosus in the South of France. Each station included a retaining wall and the surrounding phytoecological environment (total area: 2,000 m(2)).

Tributaries under Mediterranean climate: their role in macrobenthos diversity maintenance.

The taxonomic richness erosion and the role of tributaries in the maintenance of the taxonomic richness were considered in a Mediterranean catchment in southeastern France. Nine stations were chosen along the Arc stream (three stations downstream from an organic effluent and one station upstream from the pollution source) and on two groups of tributaries (three intermittent and two perennial). High biodiversity erosion was noticed in the main stem, revealing diffuse sources of pollution added to the expected effect of the localized organic pollution.

[A new approach to biodiversity: morphological plasticity of a fresh-water diatom].

Population responses of a planktonic freshwater diatom, Asterionella formosa Hassal, to the hydrodynamic anthropic disturbances were studied at the landscape scale, along a series of nine reservoirs, for a period of 18 months. The analysis of biotic descriptors as cell abundance, cell length and architecture has shown a strong morphological plasticity of this diatom. The morphological variability of A.