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Macroinvertebrate responses to flow and stream temperature variability across regulated and non-regulated rivers

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posted on 2016-08-11, 11:45 authored by James White, David M. Hannah, A. House, S.J.V. Beatson, A. Martin, Paul WoodPaul Wood
Flow regulation via impoundments threatens lotic ecosystems and the services they provide globally. Impoundments drastically alter flow and stream temperature variability within fluvial environments, but efforts to quantify ecohydrological and ecothermal responses to flow regulation in conjunction have been sparsely explored to date. This study examined macroinvertebrate community responses to river flow (discharge) and stream temperature variability across paired regulated and non-regulated systems associated with three reservoirs located in adjacent catchments. Community abundances, functional traits and biomonitoring indices were examined and ecological differences between non-regulated and regulated sites were quantified, with the most sensitive faunal response being correlated against a suite of flow and thermal indices. Regulated sites exhibited reduced low-flow variability and rapid increases in discharge during peak flows that regularly exceeded those conveyed by non-regulated sites, whilst stream temperature variability was highly congruent between sites. Macroinvertebrate functional traits were particularly sensitive to flow regulation and incorporating biomonitoring indices marginally improved the ecological discrimination between regulated and non-regulated sites. Unlike community abundances, functional traits did not vary spatially between catchments, highlighting that such information could guide the implementation of regionally uniform environmental flows. Macroinvertebrate communities responded significantly to various hydrological parameters, particularly those associated with the timing of extreme flows, but were less sensitive to thermal controls. Future research should explore ecological responses to antecedent hydrological and stream temperature variability associated with flow regulation to provide a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms driving biotic alterations, which could guide future environmental flow methodologies.

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) [grant number NE/L002493/1] and JCW acknowledges the support of Research Studentship Award from Central England NERC Training Alliance (CENTA), as well as additional funding from Wessex Water.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Geography and Environment

Published in

Ecohydrology

Citation

WHITE, J.C. ... et al., 2016. Macroinvertebrate responses to flow and stream temperature variability across regulated and non-regulated rivers. Ecohydrology, 10 (1), e1773.

Publisher

Wiley © 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/

Acceptance date

2016-07-22

Publication date

2016

Notes

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Wiley 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

1936-0592

Language

  • en

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