Natural disturbances can produce misleading bioassessment results: Identifying metrics to detect anthropogenic impacts in intermittent rivers

Abstract

1. Ecosystems experience natural disturbances and anthropogenic impacts that affect biological communities and ecological processes. When natural disturbance modifies anthropogenic impacts, current widely used bioassessment metrics can prevent accurate assessment of biological quality.2. Our aim was to assess the ability of biomonitoring metrics to detect anthropogenic impacts at both perennial and intermittent sites, and in the latter including both flowing and disconnected pool aquatic phases. Specifically, aquatic macroinvertebrates from 20 rivers were sampled along gradients of natural flow intermittence (natural disturbance) and anthropogenic impacts to investigate their combined effects on widely used river biomonitoring metrics (i.e. taxonomic richness and standard biological indices) and novel functional metrics, including functional redundancy (i.e. the number of taxa contributing similarly to an ecosystem function, here a trophic function) and response diversity (i.e. how functionally similar taxa respond to natural disturbance and anthropogenic impacts). Only the widely used IBMWP index (Iberian Biological Monitoring Working Party)was able to detect anthropogenic impacts in intermittent rivers when used during flowing phases. Several functional metrics also detected anthropogenic impacts regardless of flow intermittence. Besides, functional redundancy of the entire community remained effective even in disconnected pools. Synthesis and applications.Our results show that natural flow intermittence can confound river bioassessment, and that a set of new functional metrics could be used as effective alternatives to standard metrics in naturally disturbed intermittent rivers. Our findings suggest that water managers should incorporate alternative functional metrics in the routine biomonitoring of naturally disturbed rivers. K E Y W O R D Sbioassessment, functional diversity, intermittent rivers, intermittent streams, macroinvertebrates, multiple stressors, natural stress, temporary rivers 284 | Journal of Applied Ecology SORIA et Al.

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“…In temporary rivers, the seasonal and interannual changes in populations and communities hamper the implementation of environmental policies such as the Water Framework Directive (WFD), which aims at assessing the ecological quality of streams and rivers. The high variability found in reference conditions (i.e., the natural or unimpaired condition of an ecosystem) and the different response to anthropogenic impacts can lead to misleading bioassessment results in such systems [480]. This means that metrics and biological indices based on taxon richness and environmental tolerances may fail in detecting anthropogenic stressors in temporary rivers.…”

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“…Ecosystems are typically described in relation to their species’ complexes, functions and physical/chemical processes (Ulgiati & Brown, 2009) which collectively tend to vary with respect to three major dimensions of biocomplexity, that is, spatial heterogeneity, organizational connectivity, and temporal contingencies (Cadenasso, Pickett, & Grove, 2006). These ecological dimensions can be summarized by a range of indices and metrics such as taxonomic richness, tolerance‐based biological indices, functional redundancy, and response diversity (Soria et al, 2019). Indices can be used to detect anthropogenic impact in different ecosystems (Mouillot, Graham, Villéger, Mason, & Bellwood, 2013; Soria et al, 2019) and monitor both natural and disturbed systems (Belmar et al, 2019; Bruno, Gutiérrez‐Cánovas, Velasco, & Sánchez‐Fernández, 2016).…”

“…These ecological dimensions can be summarized by a range of indices and metrics such as taxonomic richness, tolerance‐based biological indices, functional redundancy, and response diversity (Soria et al, 2019). Indices can be used to detect anthropogenic impact in different ecosystems (Mouillot, Graham, Villéger, Mason, & Bellwood, 2013; Soria et al, 2019) and monitor both natural and disturbed systems (Belmar et al, 2019; Bruno, Gutiérrez‐Cánovas, Velasco, & Sánchez‐Fernández, 2016). Further indices, such as functional diversity (Laliberte & Legendre, 2010), biodiversity (Izsák & Papp, 2000), and species richness (Heltshe & Forrester, 1983), are also useful for describing complex ecological contexts in a simple and universal way.…”