Publications by authors named "Ana M Antao-Geraldes"
Intensifying extreme droughts are altering lentic ecosystems and disrupting services provisioning. Unfortunately, drought research often lacks a holistic and intersectoral consideration of drought impacts, which can limit relevance of the insights for adaptive management. This literature review evaluated the current state of lake and reservoir extreme drought research in relation to biodiversity and three ecosystem services.
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- Plastic debris is widely found in freshwater ecosystems, but assessing its distribution is challenging due to a lack of consistent data.
- A standardized survey of 38 lakes and reservoirs identified that plastic pollution is present in all studied locations, indicating these ecosystems are significantly affected by plastic contamination.
- The study reveals that urbanized lakes and large bodies of water with specific characteristics are particularly susceptible to high levels of plastic, stressing the need to consider these freshwater areas in pollution management efforts.
Monitoring invasive plant species is a crucial task to assess their presence in affected ecosystems. However, it is a laborious and complex task as it requires vast surface areas, with difficult access, to be surveyed. Remotely sensed data can be a great contribution to such operations, especially for clearly visible and predominant species.
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- 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.
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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