Limiting factors and thresholds for macroinvertebrate assemblages in European rivers: Empirical evidence from three datasets on water quality, catchment urbanization, and river restoration

Kail, Jochem; Arle, Jens; Jähnig, Sonja C.

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.09.038

Cited by 85 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…In our study, disturbances measured at local and catchment spatial scales both reduced EPT richness, corroborating our first hypothesis. In agreement with Kail et al (2012), catchment disturbances had a greater effect than local disturbances in these basins. The latter were not even significantly related to macroinvertebrate richness in the Upper São Francisco sites.…”

Section: The Role Of the Disturbances Measured At Local And Catchmentsupporting

confidence: 73%

Defining quantitative stream disturbance gradients and the additive role of habitat variation to explain macroinvertebrate taxa richness

Ligeiro

Hughes

Kaufmann

et al. 2013

Ecological Indicators

168

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Ligeiro, Raphael; Hughes, Robert M.; Kaufmann, Philip R.; Macedo, Diego R.; Firmiano, Kele R.; Ferreira, Wander R.; Oliveira, Déborah; Melo, Adriano S.; and Callisto, Marcos, "Defining quantitative stream disturbance gradients and the additive role of habitat variation to explain macroinvertebrate taxa richness" (2013 Currently, most rigorous methodologies designed to define those conditions are suited to large spatial extents (nations, ecoregions) and many sites (hundreds to thousands). The objective of this study was to describe a methodology to quantitatively define a disturbance gradient for 40 sites in each of two small southeastern Brazil river basins. The assessment of anthropogenic disturbance experienced by each site was based solely on measurements strictly related to the intensity and extent of anthropogenic pressures. We calculated two indices: one concerned site-scale pressures and the other catchment-scale pressures. We combined those two indices into a single integrated disturbance index (IDI) because disturbances operating at both scales affect stream biota. The local-and catchment-scale disturbance indices were weakly correlated in the two basins (r = 0.21 and 0.35) and both significantly (p < 0.05) reduced site EPT (insect orders Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera) richness. The IDI also performed well in explaining EPT richness in the basin that presented the stronger disturbance gradient (R 2 = 0.39, p < 0.001). Natural habitat variability was assessed as a second source of variation in EPT richness. Stream size and microhabitats were the key habitat characteristics not related to disturbances that enhanced the explanation of EPT richness over that attributed to the IDI. In both basins the IDI plus habitat metrics together explained around 50% of EPT richness variation. In the basin with the weaker disturbance gradient, natural habitat explained more variation in EPT richness than did the IDI, a result that has implications for biomonitoring studies. We conclude that quantitatively defined disturbance gradients offer a reliable and comprehensive characterization of anthropogenic pressure that integrates data from different spatial scales.

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Section: The Role Of the Disturbances Measured At Local And Catchmentsupporting

confidence: 73%

Defining quantitative stream disturbance gradients and the additive role of habitat variation to explain macroinvertebrate taxa richness

Ligeiro

Hughes

Kaufmann

et al. 2013

Ecological Indicators

168

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show abstract

“…Therefore, we bear responsibility to distinguish TITAN's goals and to explain clearly and carefully how it works in our publications. We note that several independent groups have interpreted our published descriptions successfully and applied TITAN in a manner consistent with our original intent (Kail et al 2012, Payne et al 2013, Smucker et al 2013). On the other hand, our experience with others (e.g., Cuffney et al 2011) has convinced us that greater explanation is necessary (King and Baker 2013).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A critique of the use of indicator-species scores for identifying thresholds in species responses

Cuffney¹,

Qian²

2013

Freshwater Science

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“…At the catchment scale, our study elaborates that variables reflecting anthropogenic stress are important for invertebrate occurrences, too (here, non-irrigated farmland and urban land use). Kail et al (2012) found thresholds of 16.3 % urban landuse in german catchments limiting ecological quality at the sites, Collier et al (2013) linked less than 20 % natural vegetation cover to changes in ecosystems functions and Death and Collier (2010) related the amount of catchment natural vegetation to water quality or biodiversity. However, in terms of biotic influences, land use can alter community composition and biodiversity patterns (Allan 2004;Harding et al 1998) and functional indices (Clapcott et al 2012;Collier et al 2013), but despite altering composition, this may not influence other environmental linkages including those between productivity, disturbance and diversity (Tonkin and Death 2012).…”

Section: Discussion Environmental Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community–environment relationships of riverine invertebrate communities in central Chinese streams

Jähnig

Shah

et al. 2015

Environ Earth Sci

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Chinese rivers are both highly biodiverse and highly under pressure, hence an urgent need exists to understand ecological drivers and disentangle different scales of stressors to support water management. Our aims were to (1) determine the most influential variables for benthic invertebrate occurrence, (2) compare results related to communities as opposed to metrics and (3) examine the role of spatial scales with relevance to management. Benthic invertebrate sampling was performed at 37 sites in selected tributaries of the middle reaches of the Yangtze, covering an environmental gradient with a focus on organic pollution (stratified sampling design). Ten metrics commonly used in biomonitoring were derived and analysed in parallel to assemblage data. Environmental variables covered 74 parameters from three different spatial scales, namely local, reach and catchment scale. We ran a CCA with each of the three subsets to find out the significant determining/explanatory variables, followed by pCCA and pRDA (for metric data) with these variables with forward selection to determine single variables important for each subset; we further used variation portioning for benthic invertebrate data. A high percentage of overall variability (70 %) of the assemblage structure was explained, with catchment-and local-scale variables being almost equally important. Small-scale variables tended to be more important than large-scale variables for the metric-based approach but not for the assemblage approach. Our results emphasise the need for spatially explicit regional studies in freshwater systems and suggest testing multi-metric assessment approaches to tackle water management and environmental health questions in China.

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Limiting factors and thresholds for macroinvertebrate assemblages in European rivers: Empirical evidence from three datasets on water quality, catchment urbanization, and river restoration

Cited by 85 publications

References 36 publications

Defining quantitative stream disturbance gradients and the additive role of habitat variation to explain macroinvertebrate taxa richness

Defining quantitative stream disturbance gradients and the additive role of habitat variation to explain macroinvertebrate taxa richness

A critique of the use of indicator-species scores for identifying thresholds in species responses

Community–environment relationships of riverine invertebrate communities in central Chinese streams

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