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The duration of channel drying affects survival of Gammarus pulex (Amphipoda: Gammaridae) within subsurface sediments: an experimental flume study

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posted on 2018-07-23, 13:34 authored by Atish N. Vadher, Jonathan MillettJonathan Millett, Rachel Stubbington, Paul WoodPaul Wood
Field studies have demonstrated that benthic fauna use hyporheic sediments during drying events in temporary rivers, but the factors influencing the survival of fauna in subsurface sediments remain poorly quantified. Laboratory mesocosm experiments were conducted to determine how the length of drying events (1, 7, 14 and 21 days) influenced the survivorship of Gammarus pulex (L.) (Amphipoda: Gammaridae). The water level was reduced to 5 cm below the substrate surface during drying experiments and held at 5 cm above the sediment surface during control experiments. The results demonstrate that G. pulex survivorship was reduced with increasing length of the experiment, particularly in the drying treatment compared to the control treatment. We show that G. pulex can persist in subsurface sediments for up to 21 days during surface drying. In view of interacting climatic drivers and water resource pressures that are increasing the spatial and temporal occurrence of streambed drying, our results have important implications for stream management. Our results also highlight the utility of mesocosm-based studies for elucidating the abiotic controls of macroinvertebrate survival during stream drying events.

Funding

Atish N. Vadher gratefully acknowledges the provision of a studentship from the School of Social, Political and Geographical Sciences at Loughborough University for funding this research.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Geography and Environment

Published in

Hydrobiologia

Volume

820

Issue

1

Pages

165 - 173

Citation

VADHER, A.N. ... et al, 2018. The duration of channel drying affects survival of Gammarus pulex (Amphipoda: Gammaridae) within subsurface sediments: an experimental flume study. Hydrobiologia, 820 (1), pp.165-173.

Publisher

Springer International Publishing © The Authors

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/

Publication date

2018-06-11

Notes

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Springer under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

ISSN

0018-8158

eISSN

1573-5117

Language

  • en

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