Publications by authors named "Ibelings B"

Article Synopsis
  • Cyanobacterial blooms pose significant challenges to ecological and public health, with existing research primarily focused on their initiation and duration rather than the loss processes that decrease their prevalence.
  • The study delineates loss processes, defined as mechanisms that remove cyanobacterial cells from the population, exploring factors like environmental stressors and biological interactions that influence these dynamics.
  • Understanding these loss processes and their variability due to different environmental conditions can enhance management strategies for cyanobacterial blooms, especially in light of changing climate conditions.
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Chytrids are important drivers of aquatic ecosystems as phytoplankton parasites. The interaction between these parasites and their hosts are shaped by abiotic factors such as temperature and light. Here, we performed a full-factorial experiment to study how temperature and light interact to affect the dynamics of the bloom-forming toxic cyanobacterium Planktothrix rubescens and its chytrid parasite.

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It is common wisdom that altruism is a crucial element in addressing climate change and other public good issues. If individuals care about the welfare of others (including future generations) they can be expected to unilaterally adapt their behaviour to preserve the common good thus enhancing the wellbeing of all. We introduce a network game model featuring both altruism and a public good (e.

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David Schindler and his colleagues pioneered studies in the 1970s on the role of phosphorus in stimulating cyanobacterial blooms in North American lakes. Our understanding of the nuances of phosphorus utilization by cyanobacteria has evolved since that time. We review the phosphorus utilization strategies used by cyanobacteria, such as use of organic forms, alternation between passive and active uptake, and luxury storage.

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While eutrophication remains one of the main pressures acting on freshwater ecosystems, the prevalence of anthropogenic and nature-induced stochastic pulse perturbations is predicted to increase due to climate change. Despite all our knowledge on the effects of eutrophication and stochastic events operating in isolation, we know little about how eutrophication may affect the response and recovery of aquatic ecosystems to pulse perturbations. There are multiple ways in which eutrophication and pulse perturbations may interact to induce potentially synergic changes in the system, for instance, by increasing the amount of nutrients released after a pulse perturbation.

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Article Synopsis
  • Extreme weather events, particularly storms, have become more frequent and intense due to climate change, impacting ecosystems globally.
  • Storms influence lake environments through runoff and physical mixing, leading to changes in physical and chemical conditions that affect phytoplankton communities.
  • The study aims to synthesize current knowledge on how storms affect phytoplankton dynamics, identify research gaps, and propose future directions for understanding these impacts in various lake types.
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Here we aim to incorporate trait-based information into the modern coexistence framework that comprises a balance between stabilizing (niche-based) and equalizing (fitness) mechanisms among interacting species. Taking the modern coexistence framework as our basis, we experimentally tested the effect of size differences among species on coexistence by using fifteen unique pairs of resident vs. invading cyanobacteria, resulting in thirty unique invasibility tests.

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Article Synopsis
  • Understanding ecological processes is crucial for addressing the impacts of climate change and human activities on lakes, which are vital for many ecosystem services.
  • Harmful cyanobacterial blooms, driven by nutrient pollution and climate-related stressors, pose significant threats to lake health and functionality.
  • The European Multi Lake Survey (EMLS), conducted in summer 2015, standardized the collection and analysis of comprehensive data from 369 lakes across Europe, promoting consistency in research and potentially serving as a model for future large-scale ecological studies.
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Cyanobacteria can form dense and sometimes toxic blooms in freshwater and marine environments, which threaten ecosystem functioning and degrade water quality for recreation, drinking water, fisheries and human health. Here, we review evidence indicating that cyanobacterial blooms are increasing in frequency, magnitude and duration globally. We highlight species traits and environmental conditions that enable cyanobacteria to thrive and explain why eutrophication and climate change catalyse the global expansion of cyanobacterial blooms.

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Insight into how environmental change determines the production and distribution of cyanobacterial toxins is necessary for risk assessment. Management guidelines currently focus on hepatotoxins (microcystins). Increasing attention is given to other classes, such as neurotoxins (e.

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Chytridiomycota, often referred to as chytrids, can be virulent parasites with the potential to inflict mass mortalities on hosts, causing e.g. changes in phytoplankton size distributions and succession, and the delay or suppression of bloom events.

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The influence of aerosols on climate is highly dependent on the particle size distribution, concentration, and composition. In particular, the latter influences their ability to act as cloud condensation nuclei, whereby they impact cloud coverage and precipitation. Here, we simultaneously measured the concentration of aerosols from sea spray over the North Atlantic on board the exhaust-free solar-powered vessel "PlanetSolar", and the sea surface physico-chemical parameters.

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Microbial populations which are resistant to antibiotics are an emerging environmental concern with potentially serious implications for public health. Thus, there is a growing concern in exploring the occurrence of antibiotic resistance in the environment with no limitations to the factors that contribute to their emergence. The aquatic environment is considered to be a hot-spot for the acquisition and spread of antibiotic resistance due to pollution with emerging contaminants derived from anthropogenic activities.

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Recent technological developments have increased the number of variables being monitored in lakes and reservoirs using automatic high frequency monitoring (AHFM). However, design of AHFM systems and posterior data handling and interpretation are currently being developed on a site-by-site and issue-by-issue basis with minimal standardization of protocols or knowledge sharing. As a result, many deployments become short-lived or underutilized, and many new scientific developments that are potentially useful for water management and environmental legislation remain underexplored.

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The occurrence of emerging biological contaminants including antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and Faecal Indicator Bacteria (FIB) is still little investigated in developing countries under tropical conditions. In this study, the total bacterial load, the abundance of FIB (E. coli and Enterococcus spp.

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Toxic cyanobacteria became more widely recognized as a potential health hazard in the 1990s, and in 1998 the World Health Organization (WHO) first published a provisional Guideline Value of 1 μg L for microcystin-LR in drinking-water. In this publication we compare risk assessment and risk management of toxic cyanobacteria in 17 countries across all five continents. We focus on the three main (oral) exposure vehicles to cyanotoxins: drinking-water, water related recreational and freshwater seafood.

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Wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) receive the effluents from various sources (communities, industrial, and hospital effluents) and are recognized as reservoir for antibiotic-resistance genes (ARGs) that are associated with clinical pathogens. The aquatic environment is considered a hot-spot for horizontal gene transfer, and lake sediments offer the opportunity for reconstructing the pollution history and evaluating the impacts. In this context, variation with depth and time of the total bacterial load, the abundance of faecal indicator bacteria (FIB; E.

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Many freshwater and marine algal species are described as having cosmopolitan distributions. Whether these widely distributed morphologically similar algae also share a similar gene pool remains often unclear. In the context of island biogeography theory, stronger spatial isolation deemed typical of freshwater lakes should restrict gene flow and lead to higher genetic differentiation among lakes.

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Parasite environments are heterogeneous at different levels. The first level of variability is the host itself. The second level represents the external environment for the hosts, to which parasites may be exposed during part of their life cycle.

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The cost of parasitism often depends on environmental conditions and host identity. Therefore, variation in the biotic and abiotic environment can have repercussions on both, species-level host-parasite interaction patterns but also on host genotype-specific susceptibility to disease. We exposed seven genetically different but concurrent strains of the diatom Asterionella formosa to one genotype of its naturally co-occurring chytrid parasite Zygorhizidium planktonicum across five environmentally relevant temperatures.

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In ecology and evolution, the primary challenge in understanding the processes that shape biodiversity is to assess the relationship between the phenotypic traits of organisms and the environment. Here we tested for selection on physio-morphological traits measured by scanning flow-cytometry at the individual level in phytoplankton communities under a temporally changing biotic and abiotic environment. Our aim was to study how high-frequency temporal changes in the environment influence biodiversity dynamics in a natural community.

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Contrary to expectation, populations of clonal organisms are often genetically highly diverse. In phytoplankton, this diversity is maintained throughout periods of high population growth (that is, blooms), even though competitive exclusion among genotypes should hypothetically lead to the dominance of a few superior genotypes. Genotype-specific parasitism may be one mechanism that helps maintain such high-genotypic diversity of clonal organisms.

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Parasites play an important role in the regulation of host population growth. How these ubiquitous stressors interact with anthropogenic stressors is less often studied. In a full factorial experiment we explored the independent and combined effects of the widely used herbicide diuron and a chytrid parasite on the fitness of genetically different monoclonal diatom populations.

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Marine and freshwater phytoplankton populations often show large clonal diversity, which is in disagreement with clonal selection of the most vigorous genotype(s). Temporal fluctuation in selection pressures in variable environments is a leading explanation for maintenance of such genetic diversity. To test the influence of temperature as a selection force in continually (seasonally) changing aquatic systems we carried out reaction norms experiments on co-occurring clonal genotypes of a ubiquitous diatom species, Asterionella formosa Hassall, across an environmentally relevant range of temperatures.

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