Relating macroinvertebrate community structure to environmental characteristics and sediment contamination at the scale of the St. Lawrence River

Abstract

There is still no assessment of the impact of sediment chemicals and environmental conditions on macroinvertebrates at the scale of the St. Lawrence River. In order to assess these impacts in the fluvial section of the St. Lawrence River including the Montreal harbour, the community structure of macroinvertebrates using different taxonomic aggregations (genus and family) and taxa attributes (abundance, presence-absence, indicator taxa) was assessed. The goal of the study was to determine the indicator taxa of macroinvertebrates along the fluvial continuum and relate changes in macroinvertebrate community to sediment chemical conditions and environmental characteristics of habitats using variance partitioning. This study also evaluated which taxonomic level and taxa attributes of macroinvertebrates were the most suitable for bioassessment of quality of sediments and habitat environment in the St. Lawrence River. Four different macroinvertebrate assemblages were found distributed along the fluvial continuum using either abundance or presence-absence data and genus or family levels. Indicator taxa characteristic of the different macroinvertebrate communities were associated with the sediment contamination gradient. However, habitat environmental characteristics (water masses, sulphur and DOC in sediments) had more influence on macroinvertebrate assemblages than sediment contamination. Our study confirms that family level analysis can give information comparable to the genus level analysis using presence-absence or abundance of macroinvertebrates, yet a higher number of indicator taxa were detected at the genus level.

A benthic quality index for European alpine lakes

“…Even if data were available about the response of single taxa to heavy metal concentration in lakes (Rizzo et al 2011) , their influence on community composition is very poorly known; often the information is based on studies with larger taxonomic resolution carried out in rivers (Masson et al 2010), little information is available about species response in lakes.…”

Drivers of Abundance and Community Composition of Benthic Macroinvertebrates in Ottawa River Sediment near Chalk River Laboratories

“…Other studies have reported that habitat conditions can have a stronger influence on macroinvertebrate communities than sediment contamination [6,[54][55][56]. For example, in a comprehensive study of the factors that structure benthic invertebrate assemblages in the St. Lawrence River, Masson et al [6] found that sediment contamination alone explained a very low percentage of the total variance of taxa (< 2%). However, environmental characteristics, such as sediment organic content and percent sand, explained between 13 and 15% of macroinvertebrate community structure.…”

“…This paper focuses on the potential impacts of radiological contamination in sediment on benthic macroinvertebrate communities in the Ottawa River in a localized area referred to as the 'footprint' compared to upstream and downstream conditions. Macroinvertebrate communities have been extensively used for biomonitoring of freshwater systems [3][4][5][6]. Benthic invertebrates in direct contact with and consuming contaminated sediments are often the biota highly exposed to sediment-associated contamination.…”

Effects of a major municipal effluent on the St. Lawrence River: A case study

“…Macroinvertebrate communities within the wastewater plume are characterized by the variations in the presence of certain nematodes, flatworms, poriferans, dipterans (Chironomus, Dicrotendipes, Tribelos), gastropods (Bithynia), isopods (Caecidatea, Lirceus), and tubificid oligochaetes (Hyodrilus, Quistadrilus and Limnodrilus) (Masson et al 2010). The oligochaetes, in particular, are tolerant of organic pollution (Aston 1973).…”

“…Myxozoans typically have complex life cycles that include both oligochaetes and fish. Oligochaete density increases at sites exposed to municipal effluents downstream of Montreal compared to those upstream (Marcogliese et al 2009;Masson et al 2010). Thus, myxozoans are good indicators of organic pollution and eutrophication.…”