Examining the relative contribution of local environmental stressors and regional factors in structuring biological communities is essential for biodiversity conservation and environmental assessment, yet their relative roles for different community facets remain elusive. Here, we examined the responses of taxonomic and functional structure of stream macroinvertebrate communities to local and regional factors across a human-induced environmental gradient in the Han River Basin, one subtropical biodiversity hotspot in China. Our objectives were: 1) to examine if functional traits were as effective as traditional taxonomic measures in differentiating anthropogenic disturbances; 2) to compare the relative importance of environmental versus spatial variables and catchment-scale versus reach-scale variables for the two community facets. We found that both species and trait compositions performed well in differentiating anthropogenic disturbances, indicating that both taxonomic and functional structures of macroinvertebrate communities were altered by human activities. Particularly, traits including voltinism, development, adult life duration, dispersal ability, respiration, body size, rheophily, habit and trophic groups appeared to be 1. Download : Download high-res image (101KB) 2. Download : Download full-size image

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