Iberian Pond Network (IPN)

Iberian Peninsula with 2 sites in Portugal and 4 sites in Spain

The Iberian Pond Network (IPN) is a novel mesocosm system built in 2014 to investigate ecological responses to climate change across bioclimatic regions. This innovative infrastructure includes a range of environments from semi-arid conditions to mountain tops. A total of 192 mesocosms, each 0.70 m deep and 1.85 m in diameter, are deployed across 6 regions on the Iberian Peninsula (Fig. 6.16.1). Locations include semi-arid (x2), Mediterranean (x1), temperate (x1) and alpine (x2) environments. This distribution of sites along a climatic gradient over a large area is expected to provide insights into effects of climate change, biogeography, biotic interactions, biodiversity and ecosystem processes in pond food webs. At each location, 32 mesocosms with a volume of 1000 l each were placed at ca. 3-5 m distance from one another. The mesocosms are equipped with an automated system controlling temperature and water level, thus enabling simulations of future climatic conditions. The mesocosms were recently set up and initiated by adding 100 kg of locally collected topsoil, then filled with local water. Repeated additions of macroinvertebrates, macrophytes, sediment and water containing plankton were intended to minimize differences among sites associated with variation in the starting date and to mimic natural colonization of the ponds. All mesocosms have been left untouched to date to allow establishment of aquatic food webs until experiments start.

A total of at least 384 person-days will be allocated to external users, which will be integrated into the existing schedule of the IPN. A minimum of 4 persons for 32 days is recommended to successfully conduct an experiment in the pond network. Access to the facility will consist of visits to each of the 6 Iberian sites, for sampling and field measurements. Each visit involves a circuit of ca. 4000 km across the Iberian Peninsula. The circuit must be done by car because public transport to the typically remote locations where the mesocosms are installed is unavailable.

Services currently offered by the infrastructure: The infrastructure provides 32 replicate ponds at each of 6 locations to emulate small freshwater ecosystems in a variety of bioclimatic regions representative of selected climate types in Europe. Such a biogeographically distributed and fully replicated mesocosm infrastructure provides unique opportunities for experimentally testing predictions of the impacts of environmental change on the structure and function of aquatic ecosystems. Testing of climate-change effects can take the form of warming experiments, space-for-time substitutions across the network, or a combination of both. The integration of the Iberian Pond Network with identical mesocosms, like at Imperial College London (see below) or similar systems in Europe, particularly in the AQUACOSM network, will provide unprecedented opportunities to examine the context-dependency of effects of environmental change on a variety of aspects of aquatic ecosystem dynamics. In addition the IPN can be used for studies addressing fundamental questions relating to spatial patterns of community composition and function at biogeographical scales.

The mesocosms were originally established with funds from the European Structural Funds and are currently used in 4 research projects, 2 funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, the 2 others through the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Innovation and the UK National Environmental Research Council. Visitors are given access to previously inoculated, well-maintained and controlled systems that are currently monitored on a regular basis. Based on established data-use agreements, external users are given access to baseline data on water chemistry and species composition in the mesocosms and in turn complement information in the data base with their own data.