Effects of deforestation from cattle ranching over time on protected rainforest streams in the Rama-Kriol Territory, Nicaragua

Betts, Joel T.; Urquhart, Gerald R.; Román-Heracleo, Jareth; Flores, Jossely C.

doi:10.1007/s10750-021-04684-w

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…Anthropogenic activities in the catchment generally affect structure and processes in riparian ecosystems, and riparian ecosystems are also responsible for directly affecting in-stream structures and processes (Firmiano et al, 2021;Sponseller et al, 2001). However, both recent and historical catchment deforestation can degrade aquatic assemblages as a result of complex interactions among direct and indirect pathways and latent effects (Betts et al, 2021;Leitão et al, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The past is never dead: legacy effects alter the structure of benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages

Linares¹,

Macedo²,

Hughes³

et al. 2023

Limnetica

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Land use is the most common and widespread threat to lotic ecosystem health and freshwater biodiversity conservation. The legacy effects of past anthropogenic land use and cover may also affect the structure and functioning of current lotic ecosys¬tems. Therefore, the aim of this study was to use benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages to evaluate the potential legacy effects of anthropogenic land use on headwater streams in the Neotropical Savanna. We tested three hypotheses. (1) The legacy effects on macroinvertebrates of the riparian zone are more important than those of the entire catchment. (2) Recent deforestation has a stronger effect on the current taxonomic structure of benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages than historical deforestation. (3) Sen-sitive taxa respond more readily than tolerant taxa to historical deforestation. To test these hypotheses, we estimated deforestation over the last 30 years for 97 stream sites in 5 hydrological units and tested it against benthic macroinvertebrate abundance, taxa richness, EPT abundance, EPT richness, Shannon-Wiener diversity, and Simpson diversity. The two first hypotheses were cor¬roborated, as Shannon-Wiener and Simpson diversity indices were significantly correlated with deforestation in the riparian zone (p < 0.05) and these diversity variables were positively correlated with older deforestation, meaning that such sites tended to recover their diversity over time after a deforestation event. The third hypothesis was only partially supported because EPT (sensitive taxa) did not represent most taxa with significant correlations with historical deforestation at catchment scale, but were the only taxa to do so at the 200 m riparian buffer. We conclude that recent deforestation has more significant effects, but past deforestation still plays a significant role in the structure and functioning of lotic ecosystems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The past is never dead: legacy effects alter the structure of benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages

Linares¹,

Macedo²,

Hughes³

et al. 2023

Limnetica

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“…The wood data used in this study was part of larger systematic sampling surveys of Brazilian and North American streams carried out using a standardised methodology developed by the USEPA, which is commonly applied in different studies across the American continent [23,36,[66][67][68]. Sample reaches were randomly selected and then observations were made during the dry season of instream wood, stream channel morphology, bed substrate, and adjacent riparian vegetation cover and structure.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The lower recruitment and retention rates result in stocks of instream wood that are lower than those in pristine streams [9]. In the tropics, the expansion of agriculture and the development of anthropogenic infrastructure have certainly changed the natural wood regime [23,36,37]. However, instream wood research has received far less attention in tropical than temperate regions [32,[38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46], and the few localities studied do not represent the diversity of tropical biomes [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further aggravating the lack of information, the Amazon and Cerrado biomes have been experiencing high rates of deforestation in recent years, mainly triggered by the expansion of agriculture [62][63][64][65]. Studies evaluating the condition of aquatic habitats suggest a reduction in the availability of wood in tropical streams impacted by agriculture [23,36,37]. Therefore, we may already have a disturbed wood regime in tropical streams (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Wood stock in neotropical streams: Quantifying and comparing instream wood among biomes and regions

et al. 2022

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Instream wood plays important chemical, physical and ecological functions in aquatic systems, benefiting biota directly and indirectly. However, human activities along river corridors have disrupted wood recruitment and retention, usually leading to reductions in the amount of instream wood. In the tropics, where wood is believed to be more transient, the expansion of agriculture and infrastructure might be reducing instream wood stock even more than in the better studied temperate streams. However, research is needed to augment the small amount of information about wood in different biomes and ecosystems of neotropical streams. Here we present the first extensive assessment of instream wood loads and size distributions in streams of the wet-tropical Amazon and semi-humid-tropical Cerrado (the Brazilian savanna). We also compare neotropical wood stocks with those in temperate streams, first comparing against data from the literature, and then from a comparable dataset from temperate biomes in the USA. Contrary to our expectations, Amazon and Cerrado streams carried similar wood loads, which were lower than the world literature average, but similar to those found in comparable temperate forest and savanna streams in the USA. Our results indicate that the field survey methods and the wood metric adopted are highly important when comparing different datasets. But when properly compared, we found that most of the wood in temperate streams is made-up of a small number of large pieces, whereas wood in neotropical streams is made up of a larger number of small pieces that produce similar total volumes. The character of wood volumes among biomes is linked more to the delivery, transport and decomposition mechanisms than to the total number of pieces. Future studies should further investigate the potential instream wood drivers in neotropical catchments in order to better understand the differences and similarities here detected between biomes and climatic regions.

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“…In a study conducted inside a Biological Reserve in Nicaragua, Betts et al (2022) showed that the deforestation history was a good predictor of stream habitat and biotic responses. Delayed effects of land-use change included decrease in input of allochthonous material and alterations in physical aspects of the stream habitat, which in turn decreased invertebrate density and richness, and changed the composition of fish and invertebrate assemblage communities.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Preface: Neotropical streams in changing landscapes

Thomaz

2022

Hydrobiologia

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Effects of deforestation from cattle ranching over time on protected rainforest streams in the Rama-Kriol Territory, Nicaragua

Cited by 10 publications

References 75 publications

The past is never dead: legacy effects alter the structure of benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages

The past is never dead: legacy effects alter the structure of benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages

Wood stock in neotropical streams: Quantifying and comparing instream wood among biomes and regions

Preface: Neotropical streams in changing landscapes

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