Benthic Diatoms in Western European Streams With Altitudes Above 800 M: Characterisation of the Main Assemblages and Correspondence With Ecoregions

Rimet, Frédéric; Gomà, Joan; Cambra, Jaume; Bertuzzi, E.; Cantonati, Marco; Cappelletti, Cristina; Ciutti, F.; Cordonier, Arielle; Coste, Michel; Delmas, François; Tison, J.; Tudesque, Loïc; Vidal, Henri; Éctor, Luc

doi:10.1080/0269249x.2007.9705702

Cited by 39 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Diatom assemblage 24, which is also present in small to medium size polluted rivers but on crystalline geology, was dominated by Eolimna minima and had Naviculadicata seminulum, Craticula molestiformis as indicator taxa. This means that the impact of geology can also be observed in polluted areas, whereas it is usually only under reference conditions that the diatom assemblages are clearly related to geology (Tison et al, 2005;Rimet et al, 2007). This means that our findings are quite in disagreement with the common idea that pollution homogenizes diatom assemblages (Pan et al, 2000).…”

Section: Structuring Importance Of Environmental Descriptors For Diatcontrasting

confidence: 82%

“…This descriptor has also been shown to be determinant in other rivers: in Luxembourg (Rimet et al, 2004), in France (Tison et al, 2004), in European mountains (Cantonati, 1998;Rimet et al, 2007), and in the rivers of Oregon USA (Weilhoefer & Pan, 2006). Water conductivity, pH, and mineral content such as bicarbonate are directly linked to the composition of the dominant geology in the river basin.…”

Section: Structuring Importance Of Environmental Descriptors For Diatmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…These databases can be used to elucidate the ecology and macroecology (Passy, 2007) of benthic diatoms, and to compare the pollution assessments obtained using diatoms in different European countries (Kelly et al, 2008). Moreover, such databases provide a new way to explore the large-scale geographical distribution of diatom assemblages, as has been done for France (Tison et al, 2005b), Finland (Soininen, 2004a), United States (Potapova & Charles, 2002;Pan et al, 2004), and even a combination of several European countries (e.g., Kovács et al, 2006;Rimet et al, 2007). Most of the studies investigating the biogeographical distribution of diatom assemblages demonstrate the importance of taking into account the regional distribution of diatoms, as summarized in the review of Soininen (2007): the dispersal pattern of diatoms is far not ubiquitous.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Assemblages of benthic diatoms in rivers are influenced both by environmental descriptors that are not affected by human activities, such as the dominant geology of the river basin (Cantonati, 1998;Tison et al, 2004;Rimet et al, 2007), the altitude of the sampling site (Ndiritu et al, 2006;Rimet et al, 2007), the distance from the source (Potapova & Charles, 2002), and by others that can be affected by human activities, such as the organic load and nutrient concentration of the water (e.g., Van Dam et al, 1994;Kelly & Whitton, 1998;Kovács et al;. Within this framework, benthic diatoms have been recommended in the last several decades as an appropriate tool for pollution assessment in rivers (e.g., Round, 1991;Coste et al, 1991;Whitton, 1991;Whitton & Kelly, 1995), and have been routinely used throughout France since the late 1990s to indicate pollution levels of watercourses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Benthic diatom assemblages and their correspondence with ecoregional classifications: case study of rivers in north-eastern France

Rimet¹

2009

Hydrobiologia

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Diatoms have been routinely used to monitor the ecological status of French rivers. Since 2000, this monitoring has been carried out to comply with the Water Framework Directive. Ecoregions corresponding to the aquatic fauna and flora of rivers were originally defined on the basis of physical descriptors, designated ''hydro-ecoregions'' in France. Since, they have been simplified into diato-ecoregions for diatoms. In this study, data sets for benthic diatoms from rivers in north-eastern France were used to identify four main groups of diatom assemblages. The first such assemblage is found in small rivers with crystalline geologies in mountainous massifs with neutral to slightly acidic pH. The second assemblage occurs in small rivers flowing on limestone in lowland regions with an alkaline pH. The third corresponds to the assemblage found in large rivers in limestone lowland regions, and the fourth in highly mineralized rivers with high levels of chloride. Within each of these main assemblages, several communities have been characterized corresponding to different levels of pollution: from pristine to highly polluted. Multivariate analysis showed that the underlying geology was the main factor structuring the diatom assemblages, followed by the pollution level. River size had little impact on diatoms. Statistical tests showed that diatoecoregions provided little information about diatom assemblages in the studied region, whereas there was a close correlation between diatoms and hydro-ecoregions. Nevertheless, these hydro-ecoregions did not account for the diatom assemblages in the highly mineralized rivers. These ecoregions could be further improved by merging the hydro-ecoregions of the crystalline mountainous massifs, all of which shared the same diatom assemblages.

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Section: Structuring Importance Of Environmental Descriptors For Diatcontrasting

confidence: 82%

Section: Structuring Importance Of Environmental Descriptors For Diatmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Benthic diatom assemblages and their correspondence with ecoregional classifications: case study of rivers in north-eastern France

Rimet¹

2009

Hydrobiologia

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“…The relative importance of environmental and spatial factors on stream diatom assemblage has been recently assessed in Europe and North America (e.g., Potapova & Charles, 2002;Rimet et al, 2007;Smucker & Vis, 2011;Göthe et al, 2013). However, except for Tang et al (2013), no study to our knowledge has been reported in Asian countries such as China.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Contribution of microspatial factors to benthic diatom communities

Cai

Fohrer

2014

Hydrobiologia

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Spatial factors can play important and potentially confounding roles governing the presence, the absence, and the abundance of the diatom species and consequently influence the diatom-based bioassessment. To examine how spatial factors affect diatom community and biomonitoring, diatom community was sampled in three catchments with similar river length and watershed area across a large spatial scale along the Yangtze River, China. Redundancy analysis (RDA) showed that patterns of diatom distribution could be attributed not only to environmental variables (e.g., NO 3 -N, TN, WT, and COD), but also to spatial factors (e.g., elevation, latitude, and longitude). Partial RDAs partitioned the total variance of diatom data explained (64.7%) into three parts: pure spatial variables contributed the highest proportion (19.8%), followed by pure environmental variables (5.4%), and the shared effects by environmental and spatial sets explained a large proportion of diatom variance (39.5%). Recognizing the potential influences of spatial factors, further accumulations of diatom data within different regions would allow for the development of better diatom-based monitoring methods for watershed diagnosis and management.

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