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Comparison of diatom community structure from epilithon and fish guts: implications for inferring past changes in water quality

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Abstract

The sampling skills of three common European fish species (Barbus barbus, Chondrostoma nasus and Squalius cephalus) were tested to assess their potential as biomonitors of past changes in river water quality through the analysis of diatoms in fish guts. The study was performed on three rivers with different chemical and physical conditions. Comparison of similarity indices revealed low diatom assemblage resemblance between epilithic samples and samples collected from fish guts at the same locality. In contrast, a mixed-effect linear model identified significant differences between locations through comparison of diatom-based water quality indices. Among fish species, diatom indices calculated from gut samples of B. barbus and C. nasus were in most cases not significantly different from those from epilithic samples while those from S. cephalus were often significantly different. The results of the study demonstrate that diatom analysis of fish guts provides a clear distinction between eutrophic and hypereutrophic rivers. Finer nutrient variations within hypereutrophic conditions were also found to be significant for some diatom indices. In this context, choice of appropriate diatom water quality index proved to be crucial in maximizing the sensitivity of the method.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Povodí Vltavy, state enterprise, for providing long-term hydrochemical data, R. Harant and R. Hrdlička for help with fish sampling, P. Šmilauer for consultation of LME models and anonymous reviewers for substantial improvement of the manuscript. The research was funded by the grant from The Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic: FRVŠ 2284/2008 and by the Grant of Grant Agency of Czech Republic: GACR 13-11193S.

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  1. Laboratory of Archaeobotany and Paleoecology, Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Branišovská 31, 370 05, České Budějovice, Czech Republic

    Tomáš Bešta

  2. Institute of Hydrobiology, Biology Centre of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Na Sádkách 7, 370 05, České Budějovice, Czech Republic

    Milan Muška

  3. The School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    Stephen Juggins

  4. Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Branišovská 31, 370 05, České Budějovice, Czech Republic

    Jakub Těšitel

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Bešta, T., Muška, M., Juggins, S. et al. Comparison of diatom community structure from epilithon and fish guts: implications for inferring past changes in water quality. Hydrobiologia 742, 233–248 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-014-1987-1

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