Conserving and enhancing freshwater biodiversity are global issues to ensure ecosystem integrity and sustainability. To meet this, it is critical to understand how the biological assemblages are determined by environmental gradients in different spatial scales. Nevertheless, information on their large-scale environmental relationships remains scarce in Korea. We aimed to understand nationwide spatial distribution patterns of benthic macroinvertebrates and important environmental factors affecting their distribution in 388 streams and rivers across Korea. A total of 340 taxa, belonging to 113 families in 23 orders of five phyla, were identified. Assemblage composition in most Korean streams included a few predominant colonizers and a majority of rare taxa. Cluster analysis based on benthic macroinvertebrates classified a total of 720 sampling sites into five clusters according to the pollution levels from fast-flowing less polluted streams with low electrical conductivity to moderately or severely polluted streams with high electrical conductivity and slow water velocity. Canonical correspondence analysis revealed that altitude, water velocity and streambed composition were the most important determinants, rather than watershed and water chemistry variables, for explaining the variation in macroinvertebrate assemblage patterns. The results provide basic information for establishing the conservation and restoration strategies of macroinvertebrate biodiversity against anthropogenic disturbances and developing more confident bio-assessment tools for diagnosing stream ecosystem integrity.

At a time when anthropogenic activities are increasingly disturbing the overall ecological integrity of freshwater ecosystems, monitoring of biological communities is central to assessing the health and function of streams. This study aimed to use a large nation-wide database to develop a multimetric index (the Korean Benthic macroinvertebrate Index of Biological Integrity—KB-IBI) applicable to the biological assessment of Korean streams. Reference and impaired conditions were determined based on watershed, chemical and physical criteria. Eight of an initial 34 candidate metrics were selected using a stepwise procedure that evaluated metric variability, redundancy, sensitivity and responsiveness to environmental gradients. The selected metrics were number of taxa, percent Ephemeroptera-Plecoptera-Trichoptera (EPT) individuals, percent of a dominant taxon, percent taxa abundance without Chironomidae, Shannon’s diversity index, percent gatherer individuals, ratio of filterers and scrapers, and the Korean saprobic index. Our multimetric index successfully distinguished reference from impaired conditions. A scoring system was established for each core metric using its quartile range and response to anthropogenic disturbances. The multimetric index was classified by aggregating the individual metric ..scores and the value range was quadrisected to provide a narrative criterion (Poor, Fair, Good and Excellent) to describe the biological integrity of the streams in the study. A validation procedure showed that the index is an effective method for evaluating stream conditions, and thus is appropriate for use in future studies measuring the long-term status of streams, and the effectiveness of restoration methods.

Rotifer community is often used as a taxon-based bioindicator for water quality. However, studies of the planktonic community from the viewpoint of functional groups in freshwater ecosystems have been limited, particularly for rotifers. Because rotifers have various trophi types determining their feeding strategies, thereby representing an ecological niche, their functional feeding groups can act as biological and ecological indicators in lakes and reservoirs where planktonic communities are dominant. We analyzed the patterns of spatial distribution of the rotifer community in various reservoirs and then its relationship with water quality through redundancy and regression analyses. Compared with taxon-based composition, the response of trophi-based composition appears simplistic and showed clearer tendency in relation with water-quality variables. Each trophi responded differently by the degree of eutrophication indicating that each trophi group is possibly affected by environments such as the combinations of water-quality variables in different ways.

-Despite numerous previous studies, relationships between watershed land use and adjacent streams and rivers at various scales in Korea remain unclear. This study investigated the relationships between land uses and the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of 720 sites of streams and rivers across the country. The land uses at two spatial scales, including a 1-km buffer and the base watershed management region (BWMR), were computed in a geographical information system (GIS) with a digital land use/land cover map. Characteristics of land uses at two spatial scales were then correlated with the monitored multidimensional characteristics of the streams and rivers. The results of this study indicate that land use types have significant effects on stream and river characteristics. Specifically, most characteristics were negatively correlated with the proportions of urban, rice paddy, agricultural, and bare soil areas and positively correlated with the amount of forest. The site-scale and BWMR-scale analyses suggest that BWMR land use patterns were more strongly related to ecological integrity than they were to site land use patterns. Improving our understanding of land use effects will largely depend on relating the results of site-specific studies that use similar response techniques and measures to evaluate ecological integrity. In addition, our results clearly indicate that the characteristics of streams and rivers are closely linked and that land use types differentially affect those characteristics. Thus, effective restoration and management for ecological integrity of lotic system should consider the physical, chemical, and biological factors in combination.

Type-specific stream assessment systems based on biotic indicators are considered a main focus of future stream assessment in many European countries. However, there is a lack of information on type-specific differences of freshwater eco-regions in South Korea. We aimed to classify the stream types characterized by stream size and altitude. Analyzing the relationship between physical environmental variables and benthic macroinvertebrates collected between 2008 and 2015 at 1,020 sites (i.e. 13,366 samples) on a national scale in South Korea, we classified a total of five Korean stream types. All streams were divided into wadeable and non-wadeable streams using stream order and width. Wadeable streams were classified as mountain, highland, or lowland wadeable streams based on altitude. Nonwadeable streams were divided into lowland non-wadeable streams or rivers based on width. Mountain and highland streams significantly correlated with altitude, whereas others were distinctly related to stream order and width. We selected 25 indicator species sensitive to stream size and altitude. These assessments will provide preliminary information for development of a future biotic stream assessment system based on stream typology.