Physicochemical and macroinvertebrate community trends in manmade ponds constructed in reclaimed opencast coal mines

Abstract

The increase in the number of artificial ponds during the last decades has not been accompanied by scientific studies about the ecological functioning of these ecosystems over time. Indeed, knowledge about long-term evolving of artificial manmade ponds is still scarce in physicochemical and biological characteristics. Ponds have been constructed with different purposes, from compensating loss of natural wetlands to treating wastewater. We have focused our attention in ponds constructed in reclaimed opencast coal mines for the control of runoff. The main objective of these manmade ponds was to avoid the pollution of natural ecosystem downstream reclaimed mines. Additionally, these manmade ponds may provide interesting ecological functions in a context of global lost of natural lentic ecosystems. But, the kind of ecological functions and services that the manmade ponds may provide are going to be determined by their characteristics. On the other hand, manmade ponds represent an excellent scenario for analyzing ecological processes as the primary succession because they are created on places where the aquatic community has not previously existed and the pond age is usually known. The information about these subjects is really scarce so, in this PhD dissertation we aspire to improve the knowledge about the characteristics of the aquatic ecosystem constructed in reclaimed opencast coal mines over time and the primary succession in manmade ponds. To that end, 19 permanent manmade ponds constructed in reclaimed opencast coal mines in the Northeast of Spain (Teruel province) covering a range of 22 years old were sampled in spring and summer of 2009. In order to get a whole consideration of the changes of the aquatic ecosystem over the time, we studied the macroinvertebrate community, the dominant macrophytes and the water, sediment and landscape characteristics of the manmade ponds.