Assessing the influence of source distance and hydroecoregion on the invertebrate assemblage similarity in central Italy streams

Abstract

Key-words:HER, macroinvertebrate, monitoring, source distance, watercourse Increasing the river habitat safeguard level is one of the main actions proposed by the European Water Framework Directive in the field of biomonitoring. To do so, watercourses within the same hydroecoregions (that is, homogeneous areas based on climate, geology and topography) ought to be compared. In addition, the source distance was thought to play an important role in comparing rivers and then planning monitoring activities. The purpose of this study was to evaluate if both hydroecoregion and source distance affect the response (in terms of taxa assemblage) of one of the most used group in the river monitoring activities: the benthic macroinvertebrate. Here we proposed the comparative influence of hydroecoregion and source distance on the invertebrate assemblage in Mediterranean rivers of central Italy. Our statistical outputs highlighted how macroinvertebrate differed for both hydroecoregions and source distance ranks. In particular, no differences were found among sites of different (1) source distance ranks and (2) hydroecoregion (that is, when this two descriptors were analyzed separately), while the highest difference in the macroinvertebrate assemblage was observed between the same source distance ranks of different hydroecoregions. Our results showed how the use of both hydroecoregion and source distance should be considered for planning monitoring activities to properly manage rivers and water resources.

Determining the macroinvertebrate community indicators and relevant environmental predictors of the Hun-Tai River Basin (Northeast China): A study based on community patterning

“…factors that influenced the study river basin, as previous studies have shown (Álvarez-Cabria et al, 2011;Traversetti and Scalici, 2014). The macroinvertebrate density and diversity both showed a decreasing trend with the pollution increase.…”

Transport and Deposition of Microplastics and Mesoplastics along the River Course: A Case Study of a Small River in Central Italy

“…In each sampling site, the water was sampled by a plankton net with a mesh size of 80 μm and a diameter of 13 cm. Water velocity (cm s -1 ) was measured by flowmeter General Oceanics 2030 series [31]. The net was held against the current in the middle of the river 13 cm below the water surface for maximum 1 minute (Supplementary Figure S1).…”

Relationship between Environmental Conditions and Structure of Macroinvertebrate Community in a Hydromorphologically Altered Pre-Alpine River

“…A representative 10 m sub-reach in the lower part of the reach was selected, and the proportions of substrate in this sub-reach were estimated. Macroinvertebrate sampling included 10 sampling units (see [35,36]) and was performed using a hand net (25 × 25 cm, mesh size 0.5 mm). Sampling plots of 25 × 25 cm were allocated to representative substrata according to their cover at the sampling site, and the "kick-sampling" method was used.…”