Microplastics have become one of the most serious global threats to animal and human health. While their presence has been documented in all Earth water ecosystems, including remote mountain lakes, the observation that the abundance of microplastics is largely different across nearby lakes has rarely been examined. As part of a citizen science initiative, this study analyzed for the first time the abundance of microplastics in the surface of 35 glacial lakes of Sierra Nevada National Park in Southern Spain with the objective of determining the local factors that control their abundance. First, we described the shape, size, color and nature of microplastics. Second, we tested whether the number of microplastics differed between basins and analyzed environmental and morphometrical features of lakes affecting their abundance. We found that microplastics were common in most lakes, with a maximum abundance of 21.3 particles per liter that akin to some of the most microplastic polluted lakes worldwide. Fragments were the predominant shape (59.7%) followed by fibers (38.8%) and very scarce spheres (1.5%). Microplastics were observed for all size-fractions, but the abundance of particles <45 μm was higher, what advocates for the use of low pore-size filters to prevent underestimation of microplastics. While the mean abundance of microplastics did not differ among basins, their quantity was related to the presence of meadows surrounding the lakes. This result indicates that while atmospheric transport of microsplastics may equally reach all basins, differences in microplastics among nearby-lakes has an anthropic origin caused by mountaineers who find lakes with ample meadows much more attractive to visit relative to barren lakes. The staggering number in these remote lakes, headwaters of rivers that feed drinking reservoirs, is a major concern that warrants further investigation and the strict compliance with waste management laws to reduce the harmful impacts of microplastic contamination.

Algal-bacterial interactions include mutualism, commensalism, and predation. However, how multiple environmental conditions that regulate the strength and prevalence of a given interaction remains unclear. Here, we test the hypothesis that the prevailing algal-bacterial interaction shifted in two years (2005 versus 2015), due to increased temperature (T) and Saharan dust depositions in high-mountain lakes of Sierra Nevada (S Spain). Our results support the starting hypothesis that the nature of the prevailing algal-bacterial interaction shifted from a bacterivory control exerted by algae to commensalism, coinciding with a higher air and water T as well as the lower ratio sestonic nitrogen (N): phosphorous (P), related to greater aerosol inputs. Projected global change conditions in Mediterranean region could decline the functional diversity and alter the role of mixotrophy as a carbon (C) by-pass in the microbial food web, reducing the biomass-transfer efficiency up the web by increasing the number of trophic links.

Multiple drivers are threatening the functioning of the microbial food webs and trophic interactions. Our understanding about how temperature, CO₂, nutrient inputs, and solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR) availability interact to alter ecosystem functioning is scarce because research has focused on single and double interactions. Moreover, the role that the degree of in situ nutrient limitation could play in the outcome of these interactions has been largely neglected, despite it is predominant in marine ecosystems. We address these uncertainties by combining remote-sensing analyses, and a collapsed experimental design with natural microbial communities from Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean exposed to temperature, nutrients, CO₂, and UVR interactions. At the decade scale, we found that more intense and frequent (and longer lasting) Saharan dust inputs (and marine heatwaves) were only coupled with reduced phytoplankton biomass production. When microbial communities were concurrently exposed to future temperature, CO₂, nutrient, and UVR conditions (i.e. the drivers studied over long-term scales), we found shifts from net autotrophy [primary production:respiration (PP:R) ratio > 1] towards a metabolic equilibrium (PP:R ratio ~ 1) or even a net heterotrophy (PP:R ratio < 1), as P-limitation degree was higher (i.e. Atlantic Ocean). These changes in the metabolic balance were coupled with a weakened phytoplankton-bacteria interaction (i.e. bacterial carbon demand exceeded phytoplankton carbon supply. Our work reveals that an accentuated in situ P limitation may promote reductions both in carbon uptake and fluxes between trophic levels in microbial plankton communities under global-change conditions. We show that considering long-term series can aid in identifying major local environmental drivers (i.e. temperature and nutrients in our case), easing the design of future global-change studies, but also that the abiotic environment to which microbial plankton communities are acclimated should be taken into account to avoid biased predictions concerning the effects of multiple interacting global-change drivers on marine ecosystems.

Freshwater ecosystems are exposed to an increasing number of stressors, challenging their biomonitoring and management. Despite recent advances in multiple-stressor research, regional-scale assessments in areas with high freshwater biodiversity and increasing anthropogenic pressure are urgently needed. We reviewed 61 studies focused on freshwater individuals, populations and communities from the Iberian Peninsula to (i) quantify the frequency of experimental approaches used (manipulative, observational), aquatic systems, biological organization levels, and types of organisms and modelled responses, (ii) identify key individual stressors and the frequency of significant positive (increase in response magnitude) and negative (decrease) effects and (iii) determine types of interacting stressors and the frequency of their combined effects. Our dataset comprised 409 unique responses to 13 types of individual stressors, 34 stressor pairs and 12 high-order interactions (3- and 4-way). We found a higher prevalence of manipulative (85 %) respect to observational studies, and a greater focus on lotic systems (59 %) and heterotrophic organisms (58 %). The most studied stressors were nutrient (Nutr), thermal (Therm), hydrologic (Hydr), ultraviolet radiation (UVR), toxic (Toxic) and salinity (Sal) stress and land-use pressure. Individual stressors showed a higher proportion of negative (34 %) than positive effects (26 %). Nutr × UVR, Toxic × Toxic, Therm × Toxic, Hydr × Toxic, Sal × Therm, and Nutr × Therm were the most studied stressor pairs. Non-interactive (50 %) and interactive responses (50 %) were balanced. Antagonistic effects (18 %) were slightly more common than synergisms (15 %), reversal or opposing (13 %) and high-order interactions (4 %). Such proportions varied within experimental approaches, biological organization levels and organism types. Our findings are helpful to manage certain stressor combinations in Iberian freshwaters. Further efforts in Iberian multiple-stressor research should be directed to (i) intensify the study of lentic systems, (ii) explore more observational data, (iii) autotrophic organisms and (vi) biodiversity-ecosystem functioning responses, and (v) cover a wider range of stressors and (vi) more complex interacting stressor scenarios.