The influence of floods on benthic insect populations in a Swiss mountain stream and their strategies of damage prevention

Maier, Kurt J.

doi:10.1127/archiv-hydrobiol/150/2001/227

Cited by 15 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Benthic invertebrate density and diversity (measured as taxa numbers) declined dramatically following the flood, as has been noted in other studies that have documented the impacts of major hydrological disturbances on stream ecosystems (e.g. Scrimgeour, Davidson & Davidson, 1988; Lytle, 2000; Matthei, Arbuckle & Townsend, 2000; Maier, 2001). Such impacts are typically caused by combinations of high shear stress leading to dislodgement, scouring and abrasion from high sediment loads and substrate mobilisation.…”

Section: Impacts Of the Floodsupporting

confidence: 68%

Land‐use influences macroinvertebrate community response following a pulse disturbance

Collier

Quinn

2003

Freshwater Biology

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Summary 1. We tested the hypothesis that interactions between disturbance types can influence invertebrate community response and recovery in two streams draining pasture (press‐pulse disturbance) and native forest (pulse disturbance) catchments before and after a one‐in‐28‐year flood. We also sampled drift and adult insects to gain insights into the relative importance of these two postdisturbance recolonisation pathways. 2. Taxa numbers and total density declined markedly at the forested site after the flood, but there was a delayed response at the pasture site, reflecting greater initial resistance to this pulse disturbance among taxa adapted to the underlying press disturbance. 3. Community composition was less stable at the pasture site where per cent abundance of taxa was highly variable prior to the flood and over the 2‐year postflood sampling period. After the flood, the pasture stream fauna was more heavily dominated by vagile taxa, including several chironomid species and hydroptilid caddisflies. 4. Taxa numbers and densities recovered to preflood levels within 5–7 months at both sites, but a range of taxa‐specific responses was observed that took up to 18 months to recover to preflood densities. Community stability at the pasture site had not returned to preflood composition by 2 years postflood. 5. Changes in drift densities of several common stream invertebrates at the pasture site reflected postflood changes in benthic densities and seasonally low drift in winter. Terrestrial invertebrates dominated drift at the pasture site for 3 months postflood whereas Ephemeroptera were most common at the native forest site. 6. Flight patterns of selected adult aquatic insects showed a strongly seasonal pattern. Abundance of adults at the pasture site in the second year following the flood increased in line with the recovery of the non‐Dipteran benthic fauna. Significant upstream flight occurred for several caddisfly species at the native forest site, and weakly directional or downstream flight was evident for most common Plecoptera and Ephemeroptera. 7. This study indicates that the magnitude and duration of responses to major pulse disturbances can depend on the presence or absence of an underlying press disturbance. This finding has implications for monitoring, and suggests that a knowledge of disturbance history beyond 2 years may be required to interpret mechanisms contributing to observed land‐use impacts.

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Section: Impacts Of the Floodsupporting

confidence: 68%

Land‐use influences macroinvertebrate community response following a pulse disturbance

Collier

Quinn

2003

Freshwater Biology

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“…Results suggest that the dominant macroinvertebrate taxa and community metrics dramatically declined following the flash flood in both rivers. Such a change has also been noted in other comparable studies (LYTLE, 2000;McCabe and GOTELLI, 2000;MAIER, 2001;SUREN and JOWETT, 2006;CHIU et al, 2008). Most of the community metrics appeared to recover within a shorter time, after the initial flash flood, in the forested river than that in the agricultural river.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Flow‐related disturbances in forested and agricultural rivers: influences on benthic macroinvertebrates

Cai

Jiang

et al. 2012

International Review of Hydrobiology

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Flow disturbances and conversions of land-use types are two major factors that influence river ecosystems. However, few studies have considered their interactions and separated their individual effects on aquatic organisms. Using monthly monitoring data from two streams with different land-use types (i.e. forest and agriculture) in the subtropical Central China over three years, we accurately predicted the changes of macroinvertebrate communities under flood disturbances and land-use type conversions. The dominant taxa and main community metrics significantly declined following flash floods. Several mayflies and chironomid had rapid rates of recovery, which could reach high abundance in three months after floods. And most of the community metrics recovered more rapidly in the forested river than that in the agricultural river. Stepwise multiple regression (SMR) models were used to investigate the relationships between biotic metrics and hydrological and temporal variables. For example, SMR revealed that floods reduced the stability of benthic communities, and the length of low flow period was of considerable importance to the recovery of the fauna. Two-way ANOVA indicated that intra-annual fluctuation had more (e.g. the total abundance and wet biomass), equal (e.g. total richness, EPT richness, percent EPT abundance, and Margalef index), or less (e.g. tolerant value) influence on macroinvertebrate communities than land-use types. Consequently, the effects of floods on macroinvertebrates should be taken into account when macroinvertebrates are used as indicators for assessing river ecosystem. IntroductionA distinguishing feature of river ecosystems is a high level of spatial and temporal heterogeneity. Their features are manifested as four dimensions, namely lateral, longitudinal, vertical and temporal dimensions (WARD, 1989), with disturbance being the primary heterogeneous driver. Disturbance has also been suggested to be the dominant factor affecting community structure in the river ecosystems (LAKE, 2000;Olsen and TOWNSEND, 2005).Disturbance can differ in the spatial and temporal patterns in their intensity and duration. Their types are recognized (LAKE, 2000;Hillman and QUINN, 2002)

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“…Such discordance must be interpreted with caution because, due to the rapid recovery of some stream invertebrate communities (e.g. Maier 2001), a monthly sampling may be inaccurate to observe the effects of floods on these communities, especially in streams, such as the Agüera, that experience frequent, unpredicatble floods. Moreover, the influence of flow regime goes beyond temporal reductions in their abundance, since it constitutes a major component of the habitat templet (Minshall 1988, Poff & Ward 1990.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Macroinvertebrate communities along a third-order Iberian stream

González

Basaguren

Pozo

2003

Ann. Limnol. - Int. J. Lim.

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The macroinvertebrate community was studied in 3 reaches along a north-Iberian stream that differ in the amount and nature of food resources. Regardless of shading and water quality, both invertebrate density and biomass were higher at the 2 downstream sites than at the headwater site. The taxonomic composition and functional organization of the faunal assemblages showed clear differences among sites: shredders and gatherers dominated the headwater site, and scrapers or gatherers, depending on the degree of shading and organic pollution, dominated the downtream sites. Macroinvertebrates responded roughly to intersite differences in food resources, but poor relationships between temporal dynamics of shredder or scraper abundance and that of their food were found. Likewise, no clear effect of floods on invertebrate density and biomass was observed.

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The influence of floods on benthic insect populations in a Swiss mountain stream and their strategies of damage prevention

Cited by 15 publications

References 24 publications

Land‐use influences macroinvertebrate community response following a pulse disturbance

Land‐use influences macroinvertebrate community response following a pulse disturbance

Flow‐related disturbances in forested and agricultural rivers: influences on benthic macroinvertebrates

Macroinvertebrate communities along a third-order Iberian stream

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