The aquatic systems responsible for water supply in the Brazilian Federal District (FD) have been threatened by anthropogenic pressures, especially considering the expressive demographic increase in the region during the last decades. The purposes of this research were: (a) to assess the water quality in streams located in the FD by monitoring physical-chemical variables; (b) to define baselines for these variables among different ecological status categories. The 14 investigated streams were sampled between 2006 and 2009, in the dry (August-September, 2006, 2008, 2009) and rainy (March-April, 2008, 2009) seasons. All sampling sites were classified in four categories ("very impacted", "impacted", "in transition" and "natural") using an adaptation of a rapid habitat assessment protocol. Differences in water quality among sites were generally well predicted in the four ecological status categories defined by the protocol, which showed a gradient in nutrient concentrations from reference sites classified as "natural" (medians: electrical conductivity = 7.3 μS cm(-1); nitrate = 0.040 mg L(-1); ammonium = 0.039 mg L(-1); soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) = <0.001 mg L(-1); total phosphorus (TP) = 0.006 mg L(-1); ) to those classified as "very impacted" (medians: electrical conductivity = 87.7 μS cm(-1); nitrate = 0.247 mg L(-1); ammonium = 0.219 mg L(-1); SRP = 0.010 mg L(-1); TP = 0.035 mg L(-1)). Point sources inputs were the main factor for water quality deterioration. The nutrient baselines reported were relatively low when compared to data collected from reference areas in Brazil (e.g., São Paulo State) or temperate regions, especially for TP.

The zooplanktonic community of Lake Paranoá has been studied for more than thirty years. Until 1998, when it was considered eutrophic, only three cladoceran species were known from the reservoir. Since 1999, when Lake Paranoá underwent intentional flushing, definite changes in species diversity and composition were identified. At the same time, exploratory studies on littoral cladoceran species were being done. The present study aims to provide additional information on the cladoceran species composition of Lake Paranoá. Seven new species records are presented, four of them also representing the first record from the Federal District (Brasília). The population previously considered as belonging to Bosmina longirostris was reconsidered and re-identified as Bosmina freyi. Figures and comments on species taxonomy and distribution are also provided.

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-The wetlands found in the Brazilian Cerrado are poorly studied environments regarding ecological aspects. Assessing the diversity of aquatic invertebrates in wetlands is a challenging task, since there are no standard sampling methods that minimize the spatial effects caused by macrophytes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of a new sampling method for assessing Cladocera richness in macrophyte-rich wetlands of Brazilian Cerrado. In six wetlands, one transect was established which corresponded to a gradient of depth or change in aquatic vegetation. Samples containing cladocerans were collected using plankton net dragged among aquatic vegetation in the dry and rainy seasons. The species accumulation curves using non-parametric estimators and the overestimation of richness were used to determine the sampling efficiency. The species accumulation curves showed different asymptotic trends regarding the season and wetland studied. Especially in the rainy season, an asymptotic trend was not observed in two of the wetlands studied, which may reflect the influence of seasonality on Cladocera assemblage. Nevertheless, the overestimation of species richness showed that the method of sampling was able to find more than 60% of the estimated species richness, regardless of season or wetland studied. These results indicate that the method employed for sampling Cladocera in the Cerrado wetlands can be considered adequate.

The maintenance of limnological monitoring programs in the Cerrado Domain is crucial as a provision of useful information about temporal variations in land use and their respective water quality responses, considering its importance as water source for different Brazilian hydrographic basins. The purpose of this research was to describe limnological variables of low-order lotic systems located in the Cerrado Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site (Environmental Protection Area (APA) Gama and Cabeça de Veado, Federal District of Brazil). Altogether, nine different streams were considered in this study. Samplings were conducted between 2010 and 2012, concentrated in the dry and rainy seasons. The sampling sites were generally characterized by low nutrient concentrations (e.g., medians, TP = 14.8 μg L(-1), TN = 20.0 μg L(-1), NO3 = 13.8 μg L(-1)) and slightly acidic waters (median, pH = 5.3), with quite low electrical conductivity values (median = 6.4 μS cm(-1)). However, water quality degradation as a response to diffuse pollution was reported in some sampling points (e.g., Onça and Gama streams), expressed by relatively higher N and P concentrations, which were probably highlighted by the good water quality of the data set as whole. Although there was a trend to higher values of nitrogen forms during the dry season, significant statistical differences between the seasonal periods were reported only for the variables temperature and dissolved silica, which were higher in the dry and rainy season, respectively. The streams located in the preserved areas inside the ecological stations of APA Gama and Cabeça de Veado can still be considered good examples of reference lotic systems in the Cerrado Domain; notwithstanding, this study reported incipient signs of water quality degradation which cannot be overlooked in future limnological monitoring.