Variability in Macroinvertebrate Community Structure and Its
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Ecological Engineering 140 (2019) 105595 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Engineering journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoleng Variability in macroinvertebrate community structure and its response to ecological factors of the Weihe River Basin, China T ⁎ Ping Sua, Xinxin Wanga, Qidong Lina, Jianglin Penga, Jinxi Songa,b, , Jiaxu Fua, Shaoqing Wanga, ⁎ Dandong Chengb,c, Haifeng Baia,QiLia, a Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Earth Surface System and Environmental Carrying Capacity, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, China b State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources, Yangling 712100, China c University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Macroinvertebrates are sensitive to changes in the river environment and ecological status. Ecological variables Macroinvertebrate over multi-spatial scales and macroinvertebrate community data were collected in June (normal flow season) Community structure and September (high flow season) of 2017 in the Weihe River Basin (WRB). A total of 14,377 individuals were Ecological factors identified, which were classified into 7 classes, 18 orders and 59 families. Macroinvertebrate community The Weihe River Basin composition, density, biomass, the values of Pielou evenness index (E), Simpson diversity index (λ) were sig- nificantly different between normal flow season and high flow season. The dominant species (Tubificidae, Chironomidae and Baetidae) were the same in both seasons. The highest richness, abundance, density and biomass occurred at a stream bed depth of 0–10 cm. The results of canonical correspondence analyses (CCA) showed that ecological factors explained the major variation in macroinvertebrate community composition. Specifically, the increased nitrogen concentrations favored tolerant species, whereas high velocity and dissolved oxygen (DO) benefitted community taxa richness and biodiversity. The reduction of taxa richness, abundance, density and biomass in high flow season was related to the summer flood. Increased nutrient concentrations and macroinvertebrate habitat damage contributed to more tolerant, yet less diverse stream macroinvertebrate as- semblages. 1. Introduction abundances and relatively long life cycle, and are easy to collect, but also are highly sensitive to deterioration or improvements in aquatic Macroinvertebrates are an important component of river ecosystems ecological conditions (Pan et al., 2015c; Calapez et al., 2017). Studies (Wallace and Webster, 1996; Cheng et al., 2018; Krajenbrink et al., based on benthic macroinvertebrates to evaluate river ecological health 2019). Mainly composed of Oligochaeta, Hirudinea, Gastropoda, In- have been published (Kerans and Karr, 1994; Meng et al., 2009; Shi secta and Malacostraca, they usually thrive in the stream bed sediments et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2018b; Zhao et al., 2019). Macroinvertebrates of rivers, lakes, and oceans, feeding on algae, bacteria, and leaves, as form an important part of freshwater ecosystems since they play an well as other organic matter in water (Xu et al., 2012; Hauer and Resh, important role in the food webs (Grubh and Mitsch, 2004), and re- 2017). As good indicators for aquatic ecosystem assessments, macro- garded as the foundation of a stable ecosystem (Mehari et al., 2014; Luo invertebrates offer feedbacks to changes in water condition (Schneid et al., 2018). Therefore, elucidating the effects of human activities and et al., 2017; Silva et al., 2018; Slimani et al., 2019), impact the de- natural causes on stream ecological health by using benthic macro- composition of organic matter (Monroy et al., 2017; Raposeiro et al., invertebrates is important. 2017) and the migration and transformation of pollutant (Bian et al., Aquatic ecosystems are often subject to a variety of anthropogenic 2016). Compared with other aquatic organisms, benthic macro- activities stresses that interfere with the behavior of aquatic species invertebrates have important advantages. They not only have large (Fausch et al., 2010; Schinegger et al., 2012; Giorgio et al., 2016; ⁎ Corresponding authors at: Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Earth Surface System and Environmental Carrying Capacity, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, China (J. Song and Q. Li). E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J. Song), [email protected] (Q. Li). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2019.105595 Received 27 March 2019; Received in revised form 1 September 2019; Accepted 9 September 2019 0925-8574/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. P. Su, et al. Ecological Engineering 140 (2019) 105595 Fig. 1. Sampling points of macroinvertebrates in WRB. Calapez et al., 2017). One such example is river channel management, Ferreira et al., 2016; Mathers and Wood, 2016; Sterling et al., 2016; which influences the morphological processes in riverbeds and in- Fierro et al., 2017; Whitmore et al., 2017; Chessman, 2018; Davis et al., directly affects the habitat condition of benthic macroinvertebrate 2018). Rivers in different regions are subject to human disturbance and (Bylak et al., 2009; Wyżga et al., 2014; Bylak et al., 2017). Another natural habitat conditions, and the structure of the macroinvertebrates major problem is that urbanization has changed the predominant type communities is significantly different (Li et al., 2019). of land use from natural vegetation to constructed impervious surface As the “mother river ” of the Guanzhong region (Song et al., 2018), (Jiang, 2009; Li, 2015), resulting in increased impervious surface and Weihe River generated the Guanzhong Plain, which is an important increased surface runoff (Paul and Meyer, 2001; Luo et al., 2018). agricultural, industrial, and educational center in northwest China Agricultural activity can affect macroinvertebrate communities through (Chang et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2018a). As the starting point of the multiple pathways and mechanisms (Maloney and Weller, 2011; Silk Road, the Weihe River Basin (WRB) has provided a solid founda- Gleason and Rooney, 2017). Industrial wastewater, when directly dis- tion for the development of the Guanzhong City Group, while playing charged into the river, could greatly increase the level of heavy metal an important role in national development strategies (Wang et al., pollution, causing heavy metal enrichment and deposition, which is 2018c). The region's production value can reach 900 billion yuan, destructive to benthic macroinvertebrates. (Roy et al., 2018; Pandey feeding nearly 24 million people (Dou et al., 2018). However, in recent et al., 2019). years, problems related to water resources (e.g., water demand rising, Besides human activities, natural factors can also result in changes annual average runoff decreasing, environmental pollution and in- in macroinvertebrate communities. Several studies have shown that creasing flood risks) have been exacerbated (Cai et al., 2016), which is during dry season, decreased water flow leads to decreased water sur- attributed to both population growth and climate change in the WRB face area and chain reactions in physicochemical variables affecting the (Chang et al., 2015). Therefore, the current water quality status in the survival of macroinvertebrates (Acuña et al., 2014; Kalogianni et al., WRB is not optimistic (Wang et al., 2018b). To explore the effect of 2017). Floods, one of the major natural disturbances to macro- human activities and natural factors on river ecology, an ecological invertebrates, are usually pulse disturbances (Rosser and Pearson, survey based on benthic macroinvertebrates was carried out in the 2018). In the flood stream, rapid velocity would redistribute substrate WRB. The specific objectives of this study were as follows: (1) describe materials (from sand to boulders), scour the streambed (Stitz et al., the characteristics of the ecological factors in the WRB; (2) investigate 2017), move detritus, snags, and change the channel itself (Scholl et al., the spatial and seasonal distribution of the macroinvertebrate assem- 2016), resulting in changes in the composition of benthic macro- blage structures; and (3) reveal the major ecological factors affecting invertebrate (Granzotti et al., 2018). the macroinvertebrate distribution. We incorporated different ecolo- Many studies have documented how macroinvertebrate assem- gical variables in our multivariate analysis to identify the key variables blages respond to ecological factors under the influence of anthro- that influence the distribution of macroinvertebrate assemblage. pogenic and natural properties (Liu et al., 2016; Cai et al., 2017a; Stitz et al., 2017; Lindholm et al., 2018). For example, water temperature, 2. Materials and methods dissolved oxygen (DO), substrate composition, stream flows and current velocity, total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), chemical oxygen 2.1. Study area demand (COD), vegetation, urbanization and land use have been identified as the main factors affecting the distribution of macro- The WRB (33° 00′ N–37° 00′ N, 104° 00′ E–107° 00′ E) has a total invertebrates (Fausch et al., 2010; Chin et al., 2016; Ding et al., 2016; area of approximately 134,766 km2 (Fig. 1), with an average annual 2 P. Su, et al. Ecological Engineering 140 (2019) 105595 runoff is 7.57 billion m3. The WRB is characterized by an arid to sub- of differences between environmental