water Article Variations in Benthic Macroinvertebrate Communities and Biological Quality in the Aguarico and Coca River Basins in the Ecuadorian Amazon Santiago Cabrera 1,2,*, Marie Anne Eurie Forio 1 , Koen Lock 1, Marte Vandenbroucke 3, Tania Oña 2, Miguel Gualoto 4, Peter L. M. Goethals 1 and Christine Van der heyden 3 1 Laboratory of Environmental Toxicology and Aquatic Ecology, Department of Animal Sciences and Aquatic Ecology, Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, Block F, 9000 Ghent, Belgium;
[email protected] (M.A.E.F.);
[email protected] (K.L.);
[email protected] (P.L.M.G.) 2 Natural Resources Career, Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering, Universidad Técnica del Norte, Avenida 17 de julio 5-21 y Gral, José María Córdova, Ibarra EC100150, Ecuador;
[email protected] 3 Health and Water Technology Research Centre, Hogeschool Gent/University of Applied Science and Arts, Valentin Vaerwyckweg 1, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium;
[email protected] (M.V.);
[email protected] (C.V.d.h.) 4 Environmental Engineering Career, Faculty of Engineering and Agrarian Sciences, Universidad de Las Américas, J. Queri, Quito 59302, Ecuador;
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[email protected] Citation: Cabrera, S.; Eurie Forio, Abstract: Adequate environmental management in tropical aquatic ecosystems is imperative. Given M.A.; Lock, K.; Vandenbroucke, M.; the lack of knowledge about functional diversity and bioassessment programs, management is Oña, T.; Gualoto, M.; Goethals, P.L.M.; missing the needed evidence on pollution and its effect on biodiversity and functional ecology. Van der heyden, C. Variations in Therefore, we investigated the composition and distribution of the macroinvertebrate community Benthic Macroinvertebrate along two rivers.