TY - JOUR
T1 - Taxonomic and functional responses of macroinvertebrate communities to dam construction in a non-wadeable river
AU - Bo, Tiziano
AU - Doretto, Alberto
AU - Marino, Anna
AU - Laini, Alex
AU - Candiotto, Alessandro
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 EDP Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Damming and impoundment are among the main flow-related alterations in rivers worldwide. However, compared to the highland river sections where the impacts associated with dams have been largely studied, still scarce evidence is available in scientific literature for large, lowland rivers. In this study, the ecological effects of a hydropower dam in the Po River (Italy) on the taxonomic and functional responses of benthic macroinvertebrates were examined by comparing one station upstream of the dam with one downstream station over a six-year period. Weak and not significant differences were observed for taxon richness, abundance and community composition. By contrast, community-level proportion of macroinvertebrates associated with water velocity increased during medium and high flow condition and decreased during low flow condition in downstream stations. Such differences were also mirrored by the Flow-T index, that is a biomonitoring index recently developed to assess hydraulic conditions in rivers. Results of this study support the adoption of stressor-specific metrics in river biomonitoring.
AB - Damming and impoundment are among the main flow-related alterations in rivers worldwide. However, compared to the highland river sections where the impacts associated with dams have been largely studied, still scarce evidence is available in scientific literature for large, lowland rivers. In this study, the ecological effects of a hydropower dam in the Po River (Italy) on the taxonomic and functional responses of benthic macroinvertebrates were examined by comparing one station upstream of the dam with one downstream station over a six-year period. Weak and not significant differences were observed for taxon richness, abundance and community composition. By contrast, community-level proportion of macroinvertebrates associated with water velocity increased during medium and high flow condition and decreased during low flow condition in downstream stations. Such differences were also mirrored by the Flow-T index, that is a biomonitoring index recently developed to assess hydraulic conditions in rivers. Results of this study support the adoption of stressor-specific metrics in river biomonitoring.
KW - Biomonitoring
KW - Community-Weighted Mean (CWM)
KW - Diversity
KW - Functional traits
KW - River ecology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85166075918&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1051/kmae/2023015
DO - 10.1051/kmae/2023015
M3 - Article
SN - 1961-9502
JO - Knowledge and Management of Aquatic Ecosystems
JF - Knowledge and Management of Aquatic Ecosystems
IS - 424
M1 - 18
ER -