Macroinvertebrates’ response to different land use in lowland streams from Uruguay: use of artificial substrates for biomonitoring

ABSTRACT

The use of macroinvertebrates as indicators of water quality is an effective and low-cost tool, which is widely implemented in biomonitoring programmes. Certain taxa are characteristic of impaired watercourses (e.g. Oligochaeta, Chironomidae and Amphipoda), while others are characteristic of good-quality watercourses (e.g. Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera; EPT). In this work, we evaluated the response of the macroinvertebrate assemblages to different land uses. For this purpose, artificial substrate colonization experiments were conducted in streams including urban (U, n = 3), intensive agriculture and dairy production (AD, n = 4) and extensive cattle ranching (CR, n = 4) land uses. Because in Uruguay pristine ecosystems are practically non-existent and streams of low order streams associated with extensive cattle production represent the lowest deterioration water quality condition, CR sites were used as control reference streams. Physicochemical water parameters were measured. For macroinvertebrate sampling, 10 artificial substrates were installed in each stream. A total of 110 artificial substrates were analysed. Each sample/site consisted of a plastic mesh bag of 1.2 cm opening, which were filled with 160 cm³ (including 73.3 ± 5.8 cm³ interstitial water) of stones sieved between 1.3 and 1.5 cm. During the summer of 2018 (February), devices were left in streams for 15 days for communities to colonize them. U and AD land use represented the stressors with the highest impact on the attributes and composition of the macroinvertebrate communities. Abundance of EPT was higher in CR, meanwhile Caenogastropoda dominated in AD, and Amphipoda in U sites. Macroinvertebrate groups to order level classification were able to effectively discriminate between different land uses. The use of artificial substrate also demonstrated to be efficient method for monitoring macroinvertebrate community. We did not find a correlation between the physicochemical water parameters and the macroinvertebrate community. In this context, we propose a rapid and cost-effective biomonitoring approach, capable of estimating the degree of impact of different land uses.

KEYWORDS:

• Lowland streams
• taxonomic resolution
• EPT
• Hyalellidae
• Cochliopidae

Acknowledgments

This work was carried out in the framework of the “Núcleo Interdisciplinario Aguas Urbanas: Proyecto y Gestión” supported by the “Espacio Interdisciplinario de la Universidad de la República”. FTM is supported by the SNI (“Sistema Nacional de Investigadores”) and PEDECIBA “Geociencias and Biologia” (“Programa de Desarrollo de las CienciasBásicas”). MB is supported by the doctoral scholarship of the SNB-ANII (“Sistema Nacional de Becas de la Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación”). We would like to thank Magda Gonzalez, Lucia Urtado, Iván Gonzalez-Bergonzoni, Guillermo Goyenola, Maite Burwood, Natalie Corrales and Natalia Vilaboa, for their collaboration in the field and Camila Vidal for the revision of the English language. To the two reviewers who helped improve the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).