Showing papers by "Roberta Bettinetti published in 2016"
TL;DR: The analyses of the historical concentration of PCBs, pp′DDT and its metabolites in a sediment core sampled from the Como Bay covering a time-period from their ban to recent times, showed that the DDTs have never experienced a significant decrease over time, with concentrations of the most abundant homologue,pp′DDE, ranging from 27 to 75 ng g(-1) d.w.
57 citations
TL;DR: The persistence of presumably viable Brachionus resting eggs and of hatched egg cases during the heavy pollution phase suggests that, unlike most other organisms, which were extirpated by the pollution of the lake, rotifers survived producing resting eggs, which secured future generations.
Abstract: Despite their ecological importance and rapid response to environmental changes, rotifers are rarely included in palaeolimnological studies. Here, we describe changes in abundance (ABD) and morphotype (MTs) diversity of rotifer resting eggs in the sediments of deep subalpine Lake Orta, Italy, covering a period prior to (pre-) 1926, during long-term ammonia and metal pollution from a rayon factory, and subsequent recovery of water quality. Following the pollution and bacterial oxidation of the ammonia, Lake Orta became the largest and deepest acid lake in Europe. Recovery of water quality followed both a ban on the discharge of industrial wastes, and a liming intervention in 1989 and 1990. We sectioned a sediment core collected from the deepest part of the lake (ORTA 07/2A) to provide a high time resolution, given the ca. 3-4 y cm -1 of sediment accumulation. Rotifer resting egg (RRE) abundance and morphotypes were examined from the sediments and compared to limnological variables indicating the pollution. Rotifer resting egg abundance significantly increased with lake contamination (r=0.609 and -0.624 for copper and pH, respectively; P<0.001; n=27). A lake-water copper concentration threshold of ca. 40 µg L -1 discriminated among pre-, during-, and post- pollution compositions of the rotifer morphotype assemblages. Diversity and morphotype richness increased during the recovery from copper pollution and with complete restoration from acidity, while abundance increased during pollution. The persistence of presumably viable Brachionus resting eggs and of hatched egg cases during the heavy pollution phase suggests that, unlike most other organisms, which were extirpated by the pollution of the lake, rotifers survived producing resting eggs, which secured future generations.
18 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a Life+ project was launched to plan the first monitoring of lake macroinvertebrates standardized at the national level, and quantile regression analysis was used to explain different metrics of diversity describing macroinversebrate communities in response to twenty-one variables representing chemical, physical and morphological characteristics of the environment.
16 citations
TL;DR: In this article, two sediment cores collected close to the main historical Cu discharge and in the central part of the Lake showed that Cu concentrations in the uppermost layers of bottom sediments remain 10 to 40-fold higher than background levels.
Abstract: Lake Orta, northern Italy, has suffered from severe copper pollution and human-induced acidification between the 1920s and the 1990s because of discharges from a rayon factory and electroplating industries located in its water basin. Following liming operations in the late 1990s, the chemical quality of the water column has been restored and signs of, still ongoing, biological recovery observed. Examination of two sediment cores collected close to the main historical Cu discharge and in the central part of the Lake shows that Cu concentrations in the uppermost layers of bottom sediments remain 10 to 40-fold higher than background levels. Past studies demonstrated the toxic potential of Lake Orta sediments to a variety of organisms at Cu concentrations comparable to present ones. Comparison with published results suggests that current level of Cu contamination may still pose a risk to sediment-ingesting organisms and slow down further ecological recovery of Lake Orta. Particular attention should be given to understand the effects of dietary ingestion of Cu from sediments which, unlike in previous ecotoxicological studies, may now represent the main route of Cu exposure for sediment-ingesting benthic organisms.
6 citations