Impacts of pesticides and natural stressors on leaf litter decomposition in agricultural streams

Agricultural pesticides are known to significantly impact the composition of communities in stream ecosystems. Moreover, agricultural streams are often characterised by loss of physical habitat diversity which may impose additional stress resulting from suboptimal environmental conditions. We surveyed pesticide contamination and rates of leaf litter decomposition in 14 1st and 2nd order Danish streams using litter bags with coarse and fine mesh sizes. Two sites differing in physical habitat complexity were sampled in each stream, and we used this approach to differentiate the effects of pesticides between sites with uniform (silt and sand) and more heterogeneous physical properties. Microbial litter decomposition was reduced by a factor two to four in agricultural streams compared to forested streams, and we found that the rate of microbial litter decomposition responded most strongly to pesticide toxicity for microorganisms and not to eutrophication. Moreover, the rate of microbial litter decomposition was generally 50% lower at sites with uniform physical habitats dominated by soft substrate compared to the sites with more heterogeneous physical habitats. The rate of macroinvertebrate shredding activity was governed by the density of shredders, and the density of shredders was not correlated to pesticide contamination mainly due to high abundances of the amphipod Gammarus pulex at all sites. Our study provides the first field based results on the importance of multiple stressors and their potential to increase the effect of agricultural pesticides on important ecosystem processes. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.