West Midlands and North West England Freshwater Group Meeting
Friday 28th March 2014
Manchester University, Room G6, Humanities Building
Bridgeford Street, Manchester
Agenda
10:30-11:10
11:10-11:25
Registration and Coffee/Tea
Christopher Sweeney, University of Manchester
“The population size and habitat of Elpidium bromeliarum (Ostracoda) in the
phytotelmata of Aechmea sp. (Bromiliaceae)"
11:25-11:45 Ismael AL-Khamaisie, University of Manchester
“Water quality and Ecology of Heavy modified river Irwell and Manchester
Ship Canal / UK”
11:45-12:00 Cecilia Medupin, University of Manchester,
“River Catchment Monitoring in the North West: Past and Future Water Quality in the
River Irwell”
12:00-13:30
Buffet Lunch and discussion
13:30-13:55
Leonie Clitherow, University of Birmingham
“Reciprocal subsidy flux between aquatic and riparian habitats across
floodplains of different ages in Glacier Bay, Alaska”
13:55-14:20 Matt Turley, University of Brighton
“Developing a biomonitoring tool for fine sediment in temperate rivers and
Streams”
14:20-14:45 Ruth Hall, Natural England
“Lake Habitat Integrity – A Nature Conservation Perspective”
14:45-15:15
Tea/Coffee and discussion
15:15-15:45
Martin Fenn, Environment Agency
“Difficulties in monitoring large rivers. Case Study: River Severn”
15:45-16:15 Liz Etheridge, Environment Agency
“The River Clun freshwater pearl mussels – is there a future?”
16:15-16:10
Discussion and Close
Please note to purchase tickets for the buffet lunch or just tea/coffee please use the following link:
http://westmidlandsandnorthwestenglandfreshwatergroup.doattend.com/
You will be given a choice of registration with tea/coffee only (£3.75) or registration with lunch and tea/ coffee
(£9.50). You will be asked to enter your email address so that a ticket can be emailed to you. We are charged
extra for use of credit or debit cards so if you have a Paypal account please use that to pay for your ticket.
Abstracts
“The population size and habitat of Elpidium bromeliarum (Ostracoda) in the
phytotelmata of Aechmea sp. (Bromiliaceae)"
Christopher Sweeney, University of Manchester
"The fresh water ostracod, Elpidium bromeliarum, is found in bromeliad phytotelmata. It is one of the
only species that completes its whole life cycle within the tank water, utilising frogs and lizards for its
dispersal. Few papers have described the habitat of this species or the conditions in which it
grows. This study aimed to determine the biochemical properties of the tank water it inhabits, while
examining whether abiotic factors such as ammonium or phosphate concentration affected
population size in Aechmea sp. Phosphate concentration appeared to be a limiting factor
for E.bromeliarum population size. However, ammonium concentration, pH, conductivity and tank
water temperature appeared not to significantly affect the ostracods. Furthermore, it was determined
the average length of E.bromeliarum in these populations was 0.468mm, significantly lower than the
1.3mm maximum that has been described in earlier studies."
“Difficulties in monitoring large rivers. Case Study: River Severn”
Martin Fenn, Environment Agency
“The River Severn is the longest river in the United Kingdom and from its tiny beginnings at Plynlimon
in Mid Wales soon grows to be a large river by the time it enters England. The Environment Agency
vision and corporate strategy includes the long term goal for ‘improved and protected inland and
coastal waters’. Monitoring is needed to determine quality and provide a measure of improvement.
Therefore it is essential to gain evidence for Water Framework Directive. However, large rivers are
difficult to monitor effectively and in Midlands West we have been trialling different methodologies to
get the best evidence possible.”
“Reciprocal subsidy flux between aquatic and riparian habitats across floodplains of different ages in
Glacier Bay, Alaska”
Leonie Clitherow, University of Birmingham
Riparian zones are unique and complex habitats, which act as interfaces between terrestrial and
stream environments (Naiman and Décamps, 1997). The recognition of the reciprocal nature of
resource subsidies in floodplain environments was perhaps first formally acknowledged by the seminal
work of Nakano and Murakami (2001) in their study of the Horonai stream in Japan. They found that
flows of resources moved in both directions: from the riparian zone to the stream and vice versa. My
work in Glacier Bay, Alaska, aims to determine whether these reciprocal resource fluxes are
subsidising consumer diets in a recently deglaciated environment (as compared to the temperate,
lowland streams used in other studies), and whether these change over time since deglaciation. Five
streams of different ages were selected and dietary analysis was carried out using stable isotopes.
Initial data analysis suggests that overall, fish diets are primarily based on terrestrial resources,
whereas terrestrial invertebrates (carabid beetles) sourced a large proportion of their diet from
emerging aquatic invertebrates. The isotopic ‘niche space’ (a proxy for trophic diversity; Layman et al.
(2007)) occupied by the organisms at these sites were compared using convex hulls. It was
hypothesised that as site age increased, more resources would be available and therefore niche space
would also increase. This was found to occur for the terrestrial invertebrates, but not for fish. It is
expected that site specific differences and distance travelled whilst foraging (fish compared to
invertebrates) may have more of an impact on diet than site age alone.
LAYMAN, C. A., ARRINGTON, D. A., MONTAÑA, C. G. & POST, D. M. 2007. Can stable isotope ratios
provide for community-wide measures of trophic structure? Ecology, 88, 42-48.
NAIMAN, R. J. & DÉCAMPS, H. 1997. The ecology of interfaces: riparian zones. Annual review of
ecology and systematics, 621-658.
NAKANO, S. & MURAKAMI, M. 2001. Reciprocal subsidies: dynamic interdependence between
terrestrial and aquatic food webs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98, 166-170.