Relationships between macrophyte species, their life forms and environmental factors in floodplain water bodies from the Bulgarian Danube River Basin

Gyosheva, Borislava; Kalchev, Roumen; Beshkova, Mihaela; Valchev, Vladimir

doi:10.1016/j.ecohyd.2019.06.003

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…We did not find any other significant differentiation of a diversity indices among the remainder hydromorphological factors, except for a significant effect of hydrological alteration and water abstraction on functional dispersion and evenness respectively. Although aquatic plants are known to respond to hydromorphological changes (Szoszkiewicz et al, 2014;Baattrup-Pedersen et al, 2016;Turunen et al, 2016;Birk et al, 2020;Gyosheva et al, 2020), only a few studies have highlighted the role of hydromorphology as an important driver of aquatic macrophytic diversity, including functional diversity (Manolaki et al, 2020;Stefanidis et al, 2021;Vukov et al, 2022). Besides substrate, hydrology plays a major role in promoting species with traits that enable them to persist droughts and low flow Fitted functions of functional dispersion (A, C, E), and functional evenness (B, D) to partial effects of statistically significant environmental variables.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…eutrophication and hydromorphological alteration) (Szoszkiewicz et al, 2014;Stefanidis and Papastergiadou, 2019;Manolaki et al, 2020;Stefanidis et al, 2021). However, there are studies that have shown that the responses of macrophytes to environmental gradients can be complex and difficult to decipher (Steffen et al, 2014;O'Hare et al, 2018;Son et al, 2018;Gyosheva et al, 2020). Thus, freshwater ecologists have shown increased interest in studying multiple facets of aquatic biodiversity, including aquatic macrophytes (Fu et al, 2014a;Schneider et al, 2015;Alahuhta et al, 2017;Elo et al, 2018;Son et al, 2018;.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Beyond taxonomic diversity patterns – investigating how α and β components of macrophyte functional diversity respond to environmental gradients in lotic ecosystems of Greece

Stefanidis,

Oikonomou,

Dimitrellos

et al. 2023

Front. Plant Sci.

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In addition to quantifying the taxonomic diversity of aquatic communities, understanding the patterns of alpha functional diversity (α-diversity) and exploring changes in functional dissimilarity (β-diversity) can improve our understanding on how ecosystems respond to environmental changes. In this study, we quantified functional alpha (α) and beta (β) diversity of macrophytic assemblages from river sites in Greece and then, examined relationships with water quality parameters and hydromorphological factors. We assigned 6 traits (Ellenberg nutrients indicator, Ellenberg light indicator, growth form, leaf size, leaf type, fruit size) to a total of 36 hydrophyte species and calculated three indices of functional diversity (functional richness, functional dispersion and functional evenness). We also estimated the total β-functional diversity and its’ main components, turnover and nestedness. To assess the effects of water quality (including physical and chemical variables) we used Generalized Additive Models (GAM) for alpha functional diversity indices and Generalized Dissimilarity Models (GDM) for beta functional diversity. We performed Kruskal-Wallis tests and permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) to search for significant variations of α- and β-diversity among the hydromorphological factors. Our results showed that macrophyte growth form and light preference were important trait characteristics that explained a large share of the total variance of functional composition. We also found relatively low taxonomic and functional richness, whereas taxonomic and functional dissimilarity were mostly attributed to species turnover, which expresses the changes in taxonomic and functional composition. We found significant relationships between functional dispersion and functional evenness with pH and oxygen saturation, whereas functional dissimilarity was driven only by geographic distance, although the GDM explained a small portion of the total variance. Functional richness, dispersion and evenness were significantly higher at systems with fine substrates and deep waters with low or high flow compared to systems with coarser substrates and riffle habitats. We also found significant variation in functional dissimilarity among the hydromorphological factors, although much of the total variance remained unexplained. Overall, our study highlights the importance of considering the functional diversity of aquatic plant assemblages within the frame of freshwater monitoring and conservation plans.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond taxonomic diversity patterns – investigating how α and β components of macrophyte functional diversity respond to environmental gradients in lotic ecosystems of Greece

Stefanidis,

Oikonomou,

Dimitrellos

et al. 2023

Front. Plant Sci.

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“…In addition, the coastal plain characteristics also influence other topographic and morphometric‐related variables that we did not measure here, such as depth and channel structure, that contribute to habitat diversity and hydromorphological variation favouring high macrophyte life‐form diversity (Gyosheva, Kalchev, Beshkova, & Valchev, 2019; Schneider, Cunha, Marchese, & Thomaz, 2018). The most heterogeneous rivers (Itanhaém and Itapanhaú) have meandering channels because they are located on large and flat coastal plains and this morphometry possibly also favours the greatest life‐form richness.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental heterogeneity influences life‐form richness and species composition but not species richness of aquatic macrophytes in tropical coastal rivers

2020

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1. The coastal rivers of the São Paulo State in SE Brazil have different lengths and seawater influence. We evaluated whether: (1) environmental heterogeneity (EH) is associated with the species and life-form richness of aquatic macrophytes; and (2) EH and geographical distance influence species composition in these coastal rivers. 2. We recorded the macrophyte species and life form occurrence and collected explanatory variables characterising the water, sediment, and river channel at 100 sampling sites over 8 rivers. We applied a principal component analysis to the explanatory variables and calculated the rivers' EH using the range of principal component 1 scores. We also determined the position of each river mouth along the coastline to measure the distance between the rivers. We used quasi-Poisson generalised linear models to evaluate the effects of EH on richness of species and life forms. To determine the effect of EH and geographical distance (Euclidean distance matrices) on the variation in species composition (Jaccard dissimilarity matrix) among the rivers, we applied multiple regressions on distance matrices. 3. The most heterogeneous river had heterogeneity score about five times greater than the least heterogeneous river. Sediment salinity, river width, total phosphorus concentration of water and distance from river mouth were the most important variables contributing to the rivers' EH. We found that EH did not explain variation in species richness; however, it had a significant positive relationship with life-form richness. The effect of EH was greater than that of the geographical distance on the variation in species composition among the rivers. The pairs of rivers with the most similar EH were the most similar in species composition, but not all of them were geographically close. 4. We conclude that EH influences life-form richness but does not influence species richness of aquatic macrophytes in the coastal rivers we studied; however, EH does influence species composition regardless of geographical distance among rivers. K E Y W O R D S aquatic plants, coastal plain, estuaries, macrophyte composition, river heterogeneity | 1895 NUNES Et al. 1 | INTRODUC TI ON Environmental heterogeneity (EH) has been reported as one of the main factors that explain species diversity (Reynolds, Hungate, Chapin, & D'Antonio, 1997), as it can promote high species richness

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“…Higher plants (11-28% cover) are mostly restricted to impounded sections, and in the lower Danube sections, primarily submerged-floating and free-floating plants were found due to lower transparency and flow velocity (Sommerwerk et al 2009). The distribution of macrophyte communities is related to engineering measures and differences in river streteches (Gyosheva et al 2020, Janauer et al 2021. Recent surveys provide an overview on wetland macrophytes in the Danube Delta (Niculescu et al 2020).…”

Section: Riparian and Aquatic Plantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Danube: On the Environmental History, Present, and Future of a Great European River

Schmid¹,

Haidvogl²,

Friedrich³

et al. 2023

River Culture: Life as a Dance to the Rhythm of the Waters

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In treating [the river] as a machine we have literally and conceptually disassembled the river. It has become to its users a set of separate spaces and parts. Fishermen see habitat. Irrigators see water. Power managers, utility operators, and those who run aluminium factories see reservoirs necessary to turn turbines. Barge owners see channels with certain depths of water. Environmentalists see brief stretches of free-flowing water. All stake a social claim to their part of the machine. None of them are concerned with the river as a whole."

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Relationships between macrophyte species, their life forms and environmental factors in floodplain water bodies from the Bulgarian Danube River Basin

Cited by 10 publications

References 22 publications

Beyond taxonomic diversity patterns – investigating how α and β components of macrophyte functional diversity respond to environmental gradients in lotic ecosystems of Greece

Beyond taxonomic diversity patterns – investigating how α and β components of macrophyte functional diversity respond to environmental gradients in lotic ecosystems of Greece

Environmental heterogeneity influences life‐form richness and species composition but not species richness of aquatic macrophytes in tropical coastal rivers

The Danube: On the Environmental History, Present, and Future of a Great European River

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