The macroinvertebrate fauna of an Australian dryland river: spatial and temporal patterns and environmental relationships

Abstract

Waterholes within the dryland Cooper Creek, Lake Eyre Basin, Australia, are connected only during floods and are typically isolated for long periods. Spatial changes in the macroinvertebrate assemblages of 15 of these waterholes belonging to four regions were explored and these changes were related to environmental aspects of the waterholes measured at four spatial scales: floodplain, waterhole, within waterhole and sample habitat. To explore temporal patterns, one region was sampled on four occasions differing in time since connection. Spatial patterns were characterised by ‘differentiation by distance’ whereby samples collected closer to each other in the landscape were more similar in assemblage composition than those collected further apart. Thus, there were significant differences between the assemblages of the four regions. Although there was a correlation between macroinvertebrate spatial patterns and a combination of local habitat, geomorphology and water chemistry attributes, it appears unlikely that these variables were responsible for the faunal differentiation by distance. Temporal variability was larger than spatial variability and temporal assemblage patterns were best explained by the ‘connectivity potential’ of waterholes, reflecting the position of individual waterholes within the broader channel network and long-term connectivity relationships, rather than the actual time since hydrological connection.

Effects of Land Use Types on Community Structure Patterns of Benthic Macroinvertebrates in Streams of Urban Areas in the South of the Korea Peninsula

“…Computational methods have been developed to analyze community data efficiently; these include predictive models [17], multivariate statistical methods [18], statistical learning models [19,20], and species abundance models [21]. Many studies have performed multivariate analyses on freshwater benthic community data to assess water quality [18,22], spatial and temporal dynamics [23,24], trait patterns [25], and community response to disturbance [18,26]. A rank abundance diagram (RAD), a type of species abundance model, has been applied to community data to elucidate alterations in community structure resulting from environmental change [27].…”

Composition and density of plant-associated invertebrates in relation to environmental gradients and hydrological connectivity of wetlands

“…However, hydrological connection with a river seems to be the most important factor influencing the composition of invertebrates (i.e. Clausen, Biggs 1997;Sandin 2003;Gallardo et al 2008;Gallardo 2009;Marshall et al 2006).…”

“…In order to rebuild the hydrological connectivity between wetlands and a river channel, a set of engineering treatments can be applied (Obolewski et al 2009). As a result, a mosaic of aquatic and land ecosystems can be created which increases the biodiversity (Marshall et al 2006).…”

Macroinvertebrados bentônicos e a estrutura do habitat em um rio intermitente do semiárido brasileiro

“…The hydrological regime plays a major role on the organization of aquatic systems and their communities in drylands, by structuring the spatial distribution of organisms (Sheldon et al, 2002), enhancing diversity of species (Maltchik and Medeiros, 2006) and creating habitat variability (Mugodo et al, 2006). This is achieved as a result of flooding events that connect habitats previously isolated during the dry season and dry periods that spatially segregate the physical characteristics of the environment (Marshall et al, 2006). In such a patchy environmental framework, it is expected that the aquatic fauna becomes extremely variable, differing significantly among spatial scales (rivers, reaches and habitats) (Blanchette and Pearson 2012).…”