Effects of Nitrogen Emissions on Fish Species Richness across the World's Freshwater Ecoregions.

ABSTRACT: The increasing application of synthetic fertilizer has tripled nitrogen (N) inputs over the 20th century. N enrichment decreases water quality and threatens aquatic species such as fish through eutrophication and toxicity. However, the impacts of N on freshwater ecosystems are typically neglected in life cycle assessment (LCA). Due to the variety of environmental conditions and species compositions, the response of species to N emissions differs among ecoregions, requiring a regionalized effect assessment. Our study tackled this issue by establishing regionalized species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) of freshwater fish against N concentrations for 367 ecoregions and 48 combinations of realms and major habitat types globally. Subsequently, effect factors (EFs) were derived for LCA to ass

SUBMITTER: Zhou J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10249400 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature