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Temporal effects of enhanced fine sediment loading on macroinvertebrate community structure and functional traits

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journal contribution
posted on 2017-04-27, 10:16 authored by Kate MathersKate Mathers, Stephen Rice, Paul WoodPaul Wood
Deposition of fine sediment that fills interstitial spaces in streambed substrates is widely acknowledged to have significant negative effects on macroinvertebrate communities, but the temporal consistency of clogging effects is less well known. In this study the effects of experimentally enhanced fine sediment content on aquatic invertebrates were examined over 126 days in two lowland UK streams. Taxonomic approaches indicated significant differences in macroinvertebrate community structure associated with sediment treatment (clean or sedimented substrates), although the effects were variable on some occasions. The degree of separation between clean and sedimented communities was strong within 7 of the 9 sampling periods with significant differences in community composition being evident. EPT taxa and taxon characterised as sensitive to fine sediment demonstrated strong responses to enhanced fine sediment loading. In marked contrast, faunal traits did not facilitate the detection of enhanced fine sediment loading. More widely, the study highlights the temporal dynamics of sedimentation effects upon macroinvertebrate communities and the need to consider faunal life histories when examining the effects of fine sediment loading pressures on lotic ecosystems.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Geography and Environment

Published in

Science of the Total Environment

Citation

MATHERS, K.L., RICE, S.P. and WOOD, P.J., 2017. Temporal effects of enhanced fine sediment loading on macroinvertebrate community structure and functional traits. Science of the Total Environment, 599, pp. 513–522.

Publisher

© Elsevier

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2017-04-12

Publication date

2017

Notes

This paper was published in the journal Science of the Total Environment and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.04.096.

ISSN

0048-9697

Language

  • en

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