Interest of a multispecies approach in active biomonitoring: Application in the Meuse watershed

Audrey Catteau (1) , Jean-Marc Porcher (2) , Anne Bado-Nilles (2) , Isabelle Bonnard (1) , Marc Bonnard (1) , Arnaud Chaumot (3) , Elise David (1) , Odile Dedourge-Geffard (1) , Laurence Delahaut (1) , Nicolas Delorme (3) , Adeline François (3) , Laura Garnero (3) , Christelle Lopes (4) , Katherine Nott (5) , Patrice Noury (3) , Olivier Palluel (2) , Mélissa Palos-Ladeiro (1) , Hervé Quéau (3) , Sébastien Ronkart (5) , Khadija Sossey-Alaoui (6) , Cyril Turiès (2) , Bernard Tychon (6) , Olivier Geffard (3) , Alain Geffard (1)

1 SEBIO - Stress Environnementaux et BIOsurveillance des milieux aquatiques
2 INERIS - Institut National de l'Environnement Industriel et des Risques
3 INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
4 LBBE - Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive - UMR 5558
5 SWDE - Société wallonne des eaux
6 Département des Sciences et Gestion de L'environnement, Arlon Campus Environnement

A biomonitoring approach based on a single model species cannot be representative of the contaminations impacts on the ecosystem overall. As part of the Interreg DIADeM program (“Development of an integrated approach for the diagnosis of the water quality of the River Meuse”), a study was conducted to establish the proof of concept that the use of a multispecies active biomonitoring approach improves diagnostic of aquatic systems. The complementarity of the biomarker responses was tested in four model species belonging to various ecological compartments: the bryophyte Fontinalis antipyretica, the bivalve Dreissena polymorpha, the amphipod Gammarus fossarum and the fish Gasterosteus aculeatus. The species have been caged upstream and downstream from five wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in the Meuse watershed. After the exposure, a battery of biomarkers was measured and results were compiled in an Integrated Biomarker Response (IBR) for each species. A multispecies IBR value was then proposed to assess the quality of the receiving environment upstream the WWTPs. The effluent toxicity was variable according to the caged species and the WWTP. However, the calculated IBR were high for all species and upstream sites, suggesting that the water quality was already downgraded upstream the WWTP. This contamination of the receiving environment was confirmed by the multispecies IBR which has allowed to rank the rivers from the less to the most contaminated. This study has demonstrated the interest of the IBR in the assessment of biological impacts of a point-source contamination (WWTP effluent) but also of the receiving environment, thanks to the use of independent references. Moreover, this study has highlighted the complementarity between the different species and has emphasized the interest of this multispecies approach to consider the variability of the species exposition pathway and sensibility as well as the mechanism of contaminants toxicity in the final diagnosis.

Mots clés: Integrated biomarker response; Wastewater treatment plant; Amphipod; Fish; Bivalve; Bryophyte

Domaines: Ecotoxicologie

Audrey Catteau, Jean-Marc Porcher, Anne Bado-Nilles, Isabelle Bonnard, Marc Bonnard, et al.. Interest of a multispecies approach in active biomonitoring: Application in the Meuse watershed. Science of the Total Environment, 2022, 808, pp.152148. ⟨10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152148⟩. ⟨ineris-03563548⟩