COVID-19 Lockdowns Promoted Recovery of the Yangtze River's Aquatic Ecosystem

文献类型： 外文期刊

第一作者： Fang, Dongdong

作者： Fang, Dongdong;Wei, Qiwei;Fang, Dongdong;Yang, Haile;Zhang, Hui;Du, Hao;Yang, Junlin;Wei, Qiwei

作者机构：

关键词： COVID-19 lockdowns; freshwater ecosystems; human activities

期刊名称：WATER （ 影响因子：3.53； 五年影响因子：3.628 ）

ISSN：

年卷期： 2022 年 14 卷 22 期

页码：

收录情况： SCI

摘要： The impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns on human life, air quality, and river water quality around the world have received significant attention. In comparison, assessments of the implications for freshwater ecosystems are relatively rare. This study explored the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on aquatic ecosystems in the Yangtze River by comparing river water quality, phytoplankton, zooplankton, and fish data collected at the site in the middle reach of the Yangtze River in 2018 and 2020. The results show that during COVID-19 lockdowns, the reduction in industrial and domestic effluent discharge led to a reduction in organic pollution and industrial plant nutrient pollution in rivers. Among them, PO43--P, CODMn, and TP were significantly decreased (p < 0.05). During lockdowns, nutrient supplies such as TN and TP were reduced, which led to inhibition of algae growth and decreased phytoplankton abundance. Phytoplankton affects the abundance of zooplankton through a bottom-up effect, and a decrease in phytoplankton density leads to a decrease in zooplankton density. The decrease in plankton density led to lower primary productivity in rivers, reduced fish feed supplies, intensified competition among fish populations, with increases in population dominated by high trophic level carnivorous fish. In addition, the decrease in fishing intensity has contributed to an increase in the number of rivers-sea migratory fish; the fish community was earlier mainly dominated by small-sized species with a short life cycle, and the number of supplementary populations has now increased. As a consequence, the fish community structure shows a tendency toward high complexity and high fish diversity. Overall, these observations demonstrate that the rapid revival of the retrogressive Yangtze River ecosystem is possible through limitation of anthropic interferences.

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