“…Considering the threats to freshwater biodiversity, such as habitat fragmentation and hydrological regulation (Bezerra et al., 2019; Liermann et al., 2012; Reid et al., 2019; Winemiller et al., 2016), studying spatial synchrony is particularly important because there is evidence that synchrony increases metapopulation extinction risk (Earn et al., 2000; Engen et al., 2002; Heino et al., 1997; Palmqvist & Lundberg, 1998), with potential effects on metacommunity (Wang et al., 2019; Wilcox et al., 2017) and ecosystem stability (Patrick et al., 2021). In fact, some recent studies have considered spatial synchrony as a criterion for assessing species extinction risk (Allen & Lockwood, 2020; Stowe et al., 2020). In addition, synchrony levels can inform population monitoring programmes by demonstrating the need to increase or the possibility to reduce the number of sites monitored, in case of low or high spatial synchrony, respectively (Rhodes & Jonzén, 2011).…”