Least Disturbed Condition for European Mediterranean rivers

Feio, Maria João; Aguiar, Francisca C.; Almeida, Salomé F.P.; João, Ferreira; Ferreira, Maryke L.; Elias, Carmen L.; Serra, Sónia R. Q.; Buffagni, Andrea; Cambra, Jaume; Chauvin, Christian; Delmas, François; Dörflinger, Gerald; Erba, Stefania; Flor, N; Ferréol, Martial; Germ, Mateja; Mancini, Laura; Manolaki, Paraskevi; Marcheggiani, Stefania; Minciardi, Maria Rita; Munné, Antoni; Papastergiadou, Eva; Fornells, Narcís Prat; Puccinelli, Camilla; Rosebery, Juliette; Sabater, Sergi; Ciadamidaro, Simone; Tornés, Elisabet; Tziortzis, Iakovos; Urbanič, Gorazd; Vieira, Cristiana

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.05.056

Cited by 90 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Indeed, as already pointed out by Feio et al (2014), environmental constraints characterizing Mediterranean rivers require appropriate methodologies for their water quality classification. By comparing diatom indices and the single metrics related to the HS, we can deduce interesting observations, especially concerning the sampling month and the water flow velocity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Suggestions for diatom-based monitoring in intermittent streams

Falasco

Piano

Bona

2016

Knowl. Manag. Aquat. Ecosyst.

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-Over the last decades, river lentification processes and droughts have been dramatically spreading worldwide, due to global and local drastic changes due to human activities. Under this scenario, the evaluation of physical disturbance caused by intermittency and droughts has become more and more relevant. In this research, we compare samples collected in Mediterranean streams following both traditional and experimental approaches with the aim of understanding if diatom indices calculated from a new sampling strategy could provide additional information for the physical disturbance assessment. Moreover, we also evaluated the response of functional metrics. Our results demonstrated that even though an enhanced sampling method better reflects hydrological disturbance than the traditional one, diatom indices do not detect it. Conversely, functional traits proved to be important metrics for the hydrological disturbance assessment. In particular, benthic diatom chlorophyll a showed significantly lower values in sections more subject to droughts. With respect to ecological guilds, the motile taxa proved to be linked to depositional areas, which resulted important microhabitats (MHs) to be explored in rivers affected by lentification. Including different MHs in the sampling process improves the information we can obtain from the analysis of the diatom community and presents important implications in documenting species distribution and autecology.Keywords: diatom indices / functional metrics / hydrological disturbance / intermittency / Mediterranean streams Résumé -Suggestions pour la biosurveillance avec les diatomées benthiques dans les rivières intermittentes. Au cours des dernières décennies, les processus de ralentissement des rivières et les sécheresses ont été considérablement répandus dans le monde entier, en raison de changements drastiques globaux et locaux dûs aux activités humaines. Selon ce scénario, l'évaluation des perturbations physiques causées par intermittence et les sécheresses est devenue de plus en plus pertinente. Dans cette recherche, nous comparons les échantillons prélevés dans des rivières méditerranéennes suivant des approches traditionnelles et expérimentales dans le but de comprendre si les indices diatomées calculés à partir d'une nouvelle stratégie d'échantillonnage pourraient fournir des informations supplémentaires pour l'évaluation des perturbations physiques. De plus, nous avons également évalué la réponse des paramètres fonctionnels. Nos résultats ont montré que, même si une méthode d'échantillonnage améliorée reflète mieux les perturbations hydrologiques que la méthode traditionnelle, les indices diatomées ne les détectent pas. À l'inverse, les traits fonctionnels se sont avérés être des paramètres importants pour l'évaluation des perturbations hydrologiques. En particulier, la chlorophylle a des diatomées benthiques a montré des valeurs significativement plus faibles dans les sections plus exposées à la sécheresse. En ce qui concerne les guildes écologiques, les taxons mo...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Suggestions for diatom-based monitoring in intermittent streams

Falasco

Piano

Bona

2016

Knowl. Manag. Aquat. Ecosyst.

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“…A more regional approach would be needed to validate the obtained results across different catchments in the Jucar River Basin District to gain more insight on habitat requirements of the considered fish species. However, samples from different rivers in nearly natural conditions are difficult to collect given the high degree of hydromorphological alteration of Mediterranean rivers (Belmar et al, 2013;Feio et al, 2013) and the sensitive state of the fish (Crivelli, 1996;Baillie et al, 2004).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Random forests to evaluate biotic interactions in fish distribution models

Vezza

Muñoz‐Mas

Martínez‐Capel

et al. 2015

Environmental Modelling & Software

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Previous research indicated that high predictive performance in species distribution modelling can be obtained by combining both biotic and abiotic habitat variables. However, models developed for fish often only address physical habitat characteristics, thus omitting potentially important biotic factors. Therefore, we assessed the impact of biotic variables on fish habitat preferences in four selected stretches of the upper Cabriel River (E Spain).The occurrence of Squalius pyrenaicus and Luciobarbus guiraonis was related to environmental variables describing interspecific interactions (inferred by relationships among fish abundances) and channel hydro-morphological characteristics. Random Forests (RF) models were trained and then validated using independent datasets. In both training and validation phases, RF showed high performance. Water depth, channel width, fine substrate and water-surface gradient were selected as most important habitat variables for both fish. Results showed clear habitat overlapping between fish species and suggest that interspecific competition is not a strong factor in the study area.

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“…The selection of appropriate reference stations is a critical step in developing and applying biological indicators of ecological condition (Whittier et al 2007;Feio et al 2014;Huang et al 2015). The sampling stations (R1, R2 and S1-S7) were distributed along 96 km of the river reach.…”

Section: Selection Of Reference Stationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Benthic diatom and macroinvertebrate assemblages, a key for evaluation of river health and pollution in the Shahrood River, Iran

et al. 2015

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The present study analyzed the relationships of two different biological assemblages (diatom and macroinvertebrate) when they are used to characterize a set of stations (from reference stations to impacted stations) within the Shahrood River. In particular, we examined the issue of concordance among these assemblages and the physicochemical parameters detected, using both multivariate and multimetric methods. In addition, the trophic diatom index and Hilsenhoff family-level biotic index for macroinvertebrate assemblages were used to evaluate the ecological status of the Shahrood River. Diatom and macroinvertebrate assemblages in the Shahrood River differed significantly between reference and impacted stations. ANOSIM showed a significant difference in the composition and abundance of diatoms and macroinvertebrates among reference, influence and impact stations, especially between reference and impact stations. Results of CCA ordination showed that benthic diatoms and macroinvertebrate assemblages were mainly affected by DO, TSS, NO 3 -, PO 4 3-concentrations and heavy metals such as Zn and Cd. Biotic indices for the Shahrood River suggested a water quality category of ''fair'' with fairly substantial organic pollution for the impacted stations.Finally, our results suggest that an appropriate management and restoration policy needs to be implemented for the Shahrood basin.

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Least Disturbed Condition for European Mediterranean rivers

Cited by 90 publications

References 52 publications

Suggestions for diatom-based monitoring in intermittent streams

Suggestions for diatom-based monitoring in intermittent streams

Random forests to evaluate biotic interactions in fish distribution models

Benthic diatom and macroinvertebrate assemblages, a key for evaluation of river health and pollution in the Shahrood River, Iran

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