Abbreviations: DK, locations in Denmark; DM, dry matter; GB, locations in Great Britain; HRT, hydraulic residence time; IBZ, integrated buffer zone; ICP-OES, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy; SE, locations in Sweden; SRP, soluble reactive phosphorus; TN, total nitrogen; TP, total phosphorus.

No abstract

Abbreviations: Pox, ammonium oxalate-extractable soil phosphorus; TP, total soil phosphorus; TPw, total water-soluble soil phosphorus; VBS, vegetated buffer strips.

Land-use change is among the most important human impacts on habitat quality and species diversity. In this study, we investigated the effects of land use on river habitat quality and sediment granulometry in a larger tropical river, affected by urbanization and agricultural land use. We selected 15 representative sampling reaches in the Rio das Mortes basin, 12 of them along the main river from its headwater to its mouth, and 3 in major tributaries. A habitat survey was conducted in these reaches in the dry season 2010 and sediment samples were taken for granulometry analyses. Sub-basin land cover of reaches was dominated by natural vegetation (41.6 to 60.2% of total land cover), followed by agricultural land cover (38.4% to 56.9%) and urban land cover (1.4% to 5.6%). Sediments were dominated by poorly to moderately sorted silts to sands, little conducive to diverse biological communities. According to the river habitat survey, all investigated river reaches exhibited moderately to totally disturbed habitat integrity, due to diverse and often co-occurring human impacts, such as riparian deforestation, water abstraction, sand and gravel extraction, and margin erosion. Only one of the investigated sampling reaches exhibited the minimum riparian forest corridor width demanded by the Brazilian Forest Code. Our results indicated that river habitat and sediment quality mainly depended on conditions in the direct vicinity of river reaches. Accordingly, initial cost-effective restoration of aquatic habitats could be achieved by relatively simple channel restoration measures and the protection of the riparian corridor in the investigated tropical river.

Small, permanent streams are at risk of becoming stagnant or intermittent because of hydrological changes induced by climate change, which can be further intensified by anthropogenic disruptions, such as water abstraction. Macroinvertebrate communities are vulnerable to such changes because they depend on stream hydromorphological regime. We conducted a fully controlled field experiment in 1 impacted and 1 unimpacted Danish lowland stream with contrasting nutrient availability. We used dams and diversions to create short-term (2-10 wk) stagnant and drought conditions, and we installed pools in the drought area to test their value as refugia for benthic macroinvertebrates. After 2 wk, community composition had changed significantly in all treatments in both streams. The abundance of Chironomidae increased and the abundance of mayflies (Baetis rhodani), stoneflies (Amphinemura standfussi, Leuctra nigra), caddisflies (Silo pallipes, Sericostoma personatum), the amphipod Gammarus pulex, and some Diptera taxa (Simuliidae, Dicranota sp.) decreased relative to the control. Diversity and total abundance did not change in the stagnant or drought treatments, so we do not consider these variables sensitive to effects of short-term flow reductions. Diversity decreased (unimpacted stream) or was not affected (impacted stream) in pools relative to the drought treatment. Thus, pools did not act as a substantial refugium for macroinvertebrates under extreme low-flow conditions. Current velocity and amount of deposited organic material explained most of the change in the macroinvertebrate community. Nutrient availability did not influence the response of the macroinvertebrate community to the treatments, probably because the physicochemical changes were exacerbated in the impacted stream and outweighed the expected higher resilience of this community. Our results clearly demonstrate that short-term stagnation and droughts in lowland streams can cause strong alteration of species composition.