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River restoration and the trophic structure of benthic invertebrate communities across 16 European restoration projects

  • RIVER RESTORATION EFFECTS
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Abstract

River restoration enhances not only habitat diversity in the stream channel and riparian zone, but also retention of organic matter, which together are expected to enhance aquatic-terrestrial linkages, and the range of autochthonous and allochthonous resources. Consequently, alterations of food-web structure and trophic relationships can be expected. We applied stable isotope analysis (δ13C, δ15N) to characterize changes in the trophic structure of benthic invertebrate communities between paired restored and unrestored river reaches across 16 European catchments. We sampled dominant taxa of invertebrate assemblages belonging to different functional feeding groups and calculated δ13C range to estimate the diversity of basal resources assimilated, δ15N range as an indicator of the trophic length and standard ellipse area corrected for small samples as a measure of isotopic niche width. We analysed (1) if restoration influences the trophic structure of invertebrates, (2) if effects of restoration depend on the extent of restoration effort, and (3) if effects of restoration depend on restoration measures applied. Our European-scale comparison indicates that river habitat restoration effects trophic structure, primarily by increasing the breadth of resources assimilated by consumers; this effect increases with restoration effort and it depends on restoration measure type.

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Acknowledgments

This study results from the EU-funded project REFORM (Restoring rivers FOR effective catchment Management), European Union’s Seventh Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under Grant Agreement No. 282656. We further acknowledge a PhD fellowship of the German Environment Foundation (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, DBU) to B.K. We are grateful to many colleagues who spent their time sampling in the field and preparing samples and to the crew of the stable isotope facility for analysing the samples. Two anonymous reviewers provided detailed and constructive comments which have improved this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Aquatic Ecology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Universitätsstr. 5, 45141, Essen, Germany

    Benjamin Kupilas, Armin W. Lorenz & Daniel Hering

  2. Section of Fresh Ecology, Norwegian Institute for Water Research, Gaustadalléen 21, 0349, Oslo, Norway

    Nikolai Friberg

  3. Department of Aquatic Sciences & Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 7050, 75007, Uppsala, Sweden

    Brendan G. McKie

  4. Instrumental Analytical Chemistry, University of Duisburg-Essen, Universitätsstr. 5, 45141, Essen, Germany

    Maik A. Jochmann

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  1. Benjamin Kupilas
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  5. Armin W. Lorenz
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Correspondence to Benjamin Kupilas.

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Guest editors: Jochem Kail, Brendan G. McKie, Piet F. M. Verdonschot & Daniel Hering / Effects of hydromorphological river restoration

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Kupilas, B., Friberg, N., McKie, B.G. et al. River restoration and the trophic structure of benthic invertebrate communities across 16 European restoration projects. Hydrobiologia 769, 105–120 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-015-2569-6

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