Does environmental disturbance also influence within-stream beta diversity of macroinvertebrate assemblages in tropical streams?

ABSTRACT

Riparian deforestation is a major threat to the ecological integrity of streams and aquatic biodiversity, influencing microhabitat availability and susceptibility to disturbances. Here we tested if riparian deforestation of tropical streams influenced beta diversity of macroinvertebrate assemblages, by comparing indices that weighted differentially rare and dominant taxa, and testing if nestedness in community composition increased in deforested streams. Within-stream beta diversity was higher in deforested than forested streams, mainly due to taxon loss and higher dominance. In disturbed streams, higher sedimentation in pool mesohabitats resulted in larger differences in community composition, whereas mesohabitats in forested streams were more stable.

KEYWORDS:

• mesohabitats
• sedimentation
• nestedness
• turnover
• biomonitoring

Acknowledgments

We thank Daniel G. Fonseca, Francisco V. Neto, Fábio T. T. Hanashiro, Ricardo Koroiva, Nelson Paiola, Fernanda G. Libório and Melissa O. Segura for help during field and laboratory work, Andréa L. T. de Souza for help in the statistical analyses, Luciano E. Lopes for help with the R software.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) [Proc. 2008/08090-0]; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) [Procs. 302890/2007-6, 552554/2007-3, 308630/2010-6].