Macroinvertebrate communities along the main stem and tributaries of a pre-Alpine river: composition responds to altitude, richness does not

Jacobsen, Dean; Wiberg‐Larsen, Peter; Brodersen, Kasper Elgetti; Hansen, Søren; Lindegaard, Claus; Friberg, Nikolai; Dall, P.; Kirkegaard, Jørn; Skriver, Jens; Toman, Mihael J.

doi:10.1016/j.limno.2020.125816

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…The number of higher taxa increases downstream, in accord with previous findings that diversity of the lotic ecosystem increases downstream, due to more diverse mesohabitats [51,52] and other resources [9,53]. On the other hand, the number of families is not increased downstream, as was recently found by Jacobsen et al [54] in the sense of decreasing altitude, which is negatively correlated with distance from source.…”

Section: Correlations Between Environmental Factors and Diversity Of supporting

confidence: 90%

Relationship between Environmental Conditions and Structure of Macroinvertebrate Community in a Hydromorphologically Altered Pre-Alpine River

Zelnik

Muc

2020

Water

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Hydromorphological alterations influence a wide range of environmental conditions as well as riparian vegetation and the structure of the macroinvertebrate community. We studied relationships between the structure and diversity of the macroinvertebrate community and hydromorphological and other environmental conditions in the river Gradaščica (central Slovenia). The Gradaščica river is a pre-Alpine torrential river that has been morphologically altered by humans. A selection of abiotic factors was measured, the ecomorphological status of the river was assessed, vegetation in the riparian zone was surveyed and benthic macroinvertebrates were sampled. Correlations between diversity and the structure of the macroinvertebrate community, environmental parameters and occurrence of invasive alien plant species in the riparian zone were identified. The significance of the influence of environmental parameters on the structure of the macroinvertebrate community was examined. We found that hydromorphological alterations in the river have had a significant influence on the diversity and composition of the macroinvertebrate community because of changes of flow velocity and the spread of invasive alien plant species that has followed those changes. Factors that also significantly influence the composition of macroinvertebrate community are distance from the source and conductivity. Our findings suggest minimization of further human hydromorphological changes of watercourses could prevent the loss of biodiversity of riverine ecosystems.

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Section: Correlations Between Environmental Factors and Diversity Of supporting

confidence: 90%

Relationship between Environmental Conditions and Structure of Macroinvertebrate Community in a Hydromorphologically Altered Pre-Alpine River

Zelnik

Muc

2020

Water

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“…Land-use changes, such as those associated with agricultural activities, degrade the habitat and the water quality in various rivers around the world [36,37]. However, such changes can be masked by the natural changes that occur in the basins, such as the altitudinal gradients that occur along a river, influencing the water's quality and the aquatic communities [38,39]. We evaluated these effects in the Aconcagua River Basin since the increase in the proportion of agricultural activity is related to an increase in the basin's size and a decrease in altitude.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of Intensive Agriculture on Benthic Macroinvertebrate Assemblages and Water Quality in the Aconcagua River Basin (Central Chile)

Fierro

Valdovinos

Lara

et al. 2021

Water

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This study assessed natural variation in the macroinvertebrate assemblages (MIB) and water quality in one of the main basins with the largest agricultural activities in Chile (Aconcagua River Basin). We sampled throughout the annual cycle; nine sampling sites were established along the basin, classifying according to agricultural area coverage as least-disturbed, intermediate, and most-disturbed. We collected 56 macroinvertebrate taxa throughout the entire study area. Multivariate analysis shows significant differences among the three disturbance categories in different seasons, both water quality variables and the MIB structure. Distance-based linear model (DistLM) analysis for all seasons explained more than 95.9% of the macroinvertebrate assemblages, being significantly explained by chemical oxygen demand, pH, total coliforms, nitrites, elevation, and water temperature. ANOVA test revealed significant differences in the proportion of noninsect individuals, macroinvertebrates density, and the number of taxa among the three disturbance categories (p < 0.05). In general, water temperature, conductivity, chemical oxygen demand, ammonium, nitrites, and nitrates increased their values downstream in the basin. Our results indicate that the elevation gradient and increment in agricultural land use in the basin had a strong influence on water quality and MIB. A better understanding of these ecosystems could help conservation and integrated watershed management.

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“…(2) Differences in the ecological environments of headwater streams (Alemneh et al, 2017). The upstream surrounding environment of glacier-fed streams is covered with ice and snow all year round, and there is very little vegetation on both sides (Martyniuk et al, 2019), while nonglacier-fed streams are mostly located in mid-to high-latitude and alpine areas with riparian forest (Jacobsen et al, 2020). The low plants (mainly herbs) on the slopes during the melting period of ice and snow have not yet turned green, and they have less resistance to the water flow formed by the ice and snow melt (Giulivo et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal changes in headwater streams macroinvertebrate assemblages during the snowmelt season in northeast china

Gao

Rong

Cao

et al. 2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Mid-latitude areas such as Northeast China are predicted to have warmer temperature according to IPCC sixth which may influence the duration of the snowmelt season. What remains unknown, however, is how annual snowmelt can influence the biodiversity of macroinvertebrate communities, especially in headwater streams in Northeast China. Here, we investigated the temporal changes (before, during, and after the snowmelt period) of macroinvertebrate communities and stream physicochemical characteristics in five headwater streams in Northeast China. We found that: (1) Macroinvertebrate taxa richness, density, Shannon diversity index, and functional diversity were lower in the melting period than in the other two periods, while biomass and percentage of dominant species were significantly higher in this period; (2) As to functional traits, “erosional”, “strong swimming ability”, “some attachment”, “streamlined shape” and “large size at maturity” traits of the macroinvertebrates taxa were significantly higher in the melting period than in the other two periods; and (3) Redundancy analysis (RDA) and multiple linear regression model found that temperature, turbidity, and velocity were key environmental factors affecting the functional traits of macroinvertebrates during the whole snowmelt process. This study could provide crucial data to support biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration of freshwater ecosystems in mid-to high-latitude and alpine areas.

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Macroinvertebrate communities along the main stem and tributaries of a pre-Alpine river: composition responds to altitude, richness does not

Cited by 6 publications

References 50 publications

Relationship between Environmental Conditions and Structure of Macroinvertebrate Community in a Hydromorphologically Altered Pre-Alpine River

Relationship between Environmental Conditions and Structure of Macroinvertebrate Community in a Hydromorphologically Altered Pre-Alpine River

Influence of Intensive Agriculture on Benthic Macroinvertebrate Assemblages and Water Quality in the Aconcagua River Basin (Central Chile)

Temporal changes in headwater streams macroinvertebrate assemblages during the snowmelt season in northeast china

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