Trophic organization and fish assemblage structure as disturbance indicators in headwater streams of lower Sorocaba River basin, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

Studies that investigate the relationship patterns between environmental structure complexity and fish fauna provide crucial information to stream restoration efforts. In order to test the hypothesis that streams with more complex environmental structure sustain more diverse and functionally more complex fish communities we sampled fish fauna from Sorocaba River headwater stream reaches (SE -Brazil). Reaches represented two distinct treatments: (1) a simplified reach, characterized by unstable fine substrate,…