Ecohydrological boundary conditions for ...

The WP4 team is interested in how the sources and flow pathways of water affect the persistence of urban aquaNBS and the biodiversity they contain. The approach uses two types of tracers, stable water isotopes and eDNA. Both give clues as to the sources and flow pathways of the water, and give information about the age of the water. These data are combined using ecohydrological models to relate the source of the water to the resilience and biodiversity of an aquaNBS. Stable water isotopes provide a signal of the material a water molecule was in contact with – like fingerprints. eDNA tell us which micro-organisms are found in the water, including bacteria, algae, and diatoms. Each method is presented in more detail below. [...]