Mayfly (Insecta: Ephemeroptera) community structure as an indicator of the ecological status of the Nišava river (Central Balkan Peninsula)

Abstract

Mayfly taxa are widely accepted as bioindicators of water quality, due to the wide variety of substrates they live on and high chances of detecting the pollution impact by assessing their community structure. Ephemeroptera samples and physicochemical data were analysed for 12 sites along the 151 km long stretch of the Nišava River in southeastern Serbia during a one-year period. Twenty eight morphologically distinct taxa belonging to eight genera were identified. The dominant genera were Baetis (35.27%) and Ephemerella (29.44%). The Ephemeroptera community structure analysis of samples from the Nišava River has shown a clear dependence of the mayfly community on the habitat type, physical and chemical parameters, and the season. The lowest Shannon's diversity index was estimated for the localities with the lowest percentage of the solid substrate and the highest average content of phosphorus and nitrogen.

Keywords:

• environmental conditions
• faunistic diversity
• spatial distribution
• water pollution

Acknowledgements

The authors give their thanks to two anonymous referees for critically reviewing and significantly improving the manuscript. This paper is published as part of the project No. 173045 and Project No. 173030 of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia.