Effects of land use on stonefly bioassessment metrics

Abstract

Stonefly samples were collected from disturbed and undisturbed streams of the Upper Orava river basin (the West Carpathians). Taxonomic richness was associated mainly with environment-scale factors such as water temperature, stream width and channel slope. Patterns in composition of stonefly assemblages detected by non-metric multidimensional scaling show that alterations in the catchment area caused by agriculture or forestry affect a number of stonefly metrics. Stonefly taxa richness and other biotic indices reflecting good water quality were negatively influenced by the extent of urban land cover and positively by forest land cover.

Keywords:

• running waters
• water quality
• stonefly metrics
• stonefly assemblages
• land use
• Carpathians

Acknowledgements

This study was a part of the Grant Projects Nos 1/4355/07 and 1/4353/07 funded by the Slovak Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education and Sciences. We express our thanks to Mgr. Z. Pilková for assistance in fieldwork and collection of material. We thank Dr Z. Šustek for help with translating our text. We thank Prof. P.H. Adler, Clemson University, USA, for correcting the English version of the manuscript.