Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences (DEEP), Stockholm University, S-10961, Stockholm, SE, Sweden.
Sustainable Places Research Institute, Cardiff University, 33 Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3BA, UK.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2018 May;25(14):13373-13381. doi: 10.1007/s11356-016-8248-y. Epub 2017 Jan 23.
In Costa Rica, considerable effort goes to conservation and protection of biodiversity, while at the same time agricultural pesticide use is among the highest in the world. Several protected areas, some being wetlands or marine reserves, are situated downstream large-scale banana farms, with an average of 57 pesticide applications per year. The banana industry is increasingly aware of the need to reduce their negative environmental impact, but few ecological field studies have been made to evaluate the efficiency of proposed mitigation strategies. This study compared the composition of benthic macroinvertebrate communities up- and downstream effluent water from banana farms in order to assess whether benthic invertebrate community structure can be used to detect environmental impact of banana farming, and thereby usable to assess improvements in management practises. Aquatic invertebrate samples were collected at 13 sites, using kick-net sampling, both up- and downstream banana farms in fast flowing streams in the Caribbean zone of Costa Rica. In total, 2888 invertebrate specimens were collected, belonging to 15 orders and 48 families or taxa. The change in community composition was analysed using multivariate statistics. Additionally, a biodiversity index and the Biological Monitoring Working Party (BMWP) score system was applied along with a number of community composition descriptors. Multivariate analyses indicated that surface waters immediately up- and downstream large-scale banana farms have different macroinvertebrate community compositions with the most evident differences being higher dominance by a single taxa and a much higher total abundance, mostly of that same taxon. Assessment of macroinvertebrate community composition thus appears to be a viable approach to detect negative impact from chemical-intensive agriculture and could become an effective means to monitor the efficacy of changes/proposed improvements in farming practises in Costa Rica and similar systems.
在哥斯达黎加，人们为保护和维护生物多样性付出了巨大努力，与此同时，该国的农业农药使用量在世界上也位居前列。一些受保护地区，包括湿地或海洋保护区，位于大型香蕉农场的下游，这些农场每年平均要使用 57 种农药。香蕉产业越来越意识到需要减少其对环境的负面影响，但很少有生态实地研究来评估拟议的缓解策略的效率。本研究对比了香蕉农场上下游废水的底栖大型无脊椎动物群落组成，以评估底栖无脊椎动物群落结构是否可用于检测香蕉种植对环境的影响，从而可用于评估管理实践的改进。在哥斯达黎加加勒比地区快速流动的溪流中，在香蕉农场的上下游，使用踢网采样法采集了 13 个地点的水生无脊椎动物样本。共采集到 2888 个无脊椎动物标本，隶属于 15 个目和 48 个科或类群。使用多元统计方法分析了群落组成的变化。此外，还应用了生物多样性指数和生物监测工作组（BMWP）评分系统以及一些群落组成描述符。多元分析表明，大型香蕉农场上下游的地表水具有不同的大型无脊椎动物群落组成，最明显的差异是单一分类群的优势度更高，总丰度也更高，而且主要是同一分类群。因此，评估大型无脊椎动物群落组成似乎是一种可行的方法，可以检测到化学密集型农业的负面影响，并且可以成为监测哥斯达黎加和类似系统中农业实践变化/拟议改进效果的有效手段。
