The benthic macroinvertebrates are organisms of extremely importance to the energy flow of lotic ecosystems, acting as a link between basal resourcers and predators. This study aimed to analyze patterns of abundance, richness and diversity of a benthic macroinvertebrates community in different types of substrate and different velocities of water. The study was carried on in a stretch of 40 meters of a headwater stream located at the Tijuca National Park, the Tijuca River. The sampling was perfomed in September 2016. We sampled four types of samples, which we denominated as “habitats”: litter in riffle, litter in pool, sand in riffle and sand in pool. A total total of 2.208 individuals were collected, with most of them being immature insects. We confirmed our assumptions by finding difference between the composition of the four types of habitats. It was found higher abundance, richness and diversity in litter habitats, confirming that the characteristics of this type of substrate are more favorable for the majority of the benthic macrofauna.
The community of aquatic insects is extremely abundant and diverse in neotropical streams, presenting great importance for studies of streams in the present day. Therefore, the present study has the objective of analyzing and identifying the aquatic insect community of a section of the Tijuca - Tijuca Forest (Rio de Janeiro, RJ). The sampling was performed in 2017 using a surber (30x30 cm, 250 μm mesh) with which 12 samples were collected from 3 habitats (litter, rock and sand) and 2 distinct mesohabitats (pool and riffle). A total of 1.836 aquatic insects were found, with the litter substrate being the most abundant (1.084), followed by sand (434) and stone (318). Therefore, the study concluded that there is great abundance and variety of aquatic insects present in the stretch of the Tijuca River, where the substrate type and the mesohabitat are determinant to understand the distribution of the individuals along the water body.
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