Macroinvertebrate community dynamics in a temperate European Atlantic river. Do they conform to general ecological theory?

Abstract

Spatial and temporal dynamics of macroinvertebrate communities have usually been linked to several environmental and anthropic factors. The aim of this study is to elucidate how important are these factors in structuring macroinvertebrate communities from temperate regions. Regarding the macroinvertebrate number of taxa, the Habitat Template Model, the Dynamic Equilibrium Hypothesis and the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis will be tested in order to know how important the diversity of instream elements and the hydrological disturbance frequency are in defining the macroinvertebrate taxonomic richness. Thus, the structure and composition of macroinvertebrate communities were analysed in nine sites of the Pas River basin, a temperate Atlantic basin in northern Spain, during winter, spring, summer and autumn 2005, together with water physicochemical and environmental characteristics. Macroinvertebrate abundance increased downstream and during summer, probably favoured by lower hydraulic stress and water organic enrichment. As predicts the Habitat Template Model, the macroinvertebrate number of taxa was related to habitat heterogeneity. However, no clear relationship amongst macroinvertebrate richness and water quality was found. The macroinvertebrate taxonomic richness did not correspond exactly with the Dynamic Equilibrium Hypothesis and the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis because it was relatively high in the absence of hydrological disturbances (summer). Thus, disturbance events may play a secondary role in determining the seasonal dynamic of the number of taxa. However, hydrological disturbances can be considered the most important factors explaining the seasonal pattern of macroinvertebrate abundance. On the other hand, spatial patterns of macroinvertebrate community structure and composition were mainly determined by resource availability, hydraulic conditions, habitat heterogeneity and human alterations, whilst hydrological predictability and resource availability might play a major role in determining seasonal dynamics.

Temporal dynamics of benthic macroinvertebrate communities and their response to elevated specific conductance in Appalachian coalfield headwater streams

“…Phenological patterns and their influence on community metrics were important to our findings. Others observing seasonal taxonomic shifts have attributed them to various causal factors, including life cycle phenologies (Butler 1984, Johnson et al 2012, seasonal changes in food resources (Vannote 1980, Hawkins and Sedell 1981, Álvarez-Cabria 2011, and seasonal patterns of physicochemical variables such as stream temperature (Vannote and Sweeney 1980). Others have observed these factors are related given that taxa emergence patterns may be synchronized with environmental conditions that vary with seasonal influence (Vannote et al 1980).…”

Seasonal shifts in the assembly dynamics of benthic macroinvertebrate and diatom communities in a subtropical river

“…For instance, Stenger-Kovács, Lengyel, Crossetti, Üveges, and Padisák (2013) demonstrated that high-and low-profile (i.e., tall and short stature, respectively; Passy, 2007) diatom species increased with increased solar irradiance, because higher irradiance levels can penetrate the algal matrix and can reach the deeper layers of the epilithon (Dodds, 1992). In addition, macroinvertebrate scrapers and predators reached their highest abundance during summer due to maximal resource levels (Álvarez-Cabria, Barquín, & Juanes, 2010). Moreover, biotic interactions, such as grazing and predation, are also important in the context of community assembly (Abe, Uchida, Nagumo, & Tanaka, 2006;Bolam, Rollwagen-Bollens, & Bollens, 2019;Vilmi, Tolonen, Karjalainen, & Heino, 2017), which can lead to temporal variation in lotic community structures (Fitzgerald et al, 2017;Rosemond et al, 2000;Tonkin et al, 2018;Yang, Tang, & Dudgeon, 2009).…”

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

“…This is a multivariate permutation procedure widely used with macroinvertebrate assemblages (e.g., Álvarez-Cabria et al, 2011;Almeida et al, 2013) to verify similarity in their composition between sampling sites. This test returns an R value estimating the strength of sampling sites separation varying from 1 (higher similarity) to 0 (no similarity) (Clarke, 1993).…”