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Response of aquatic insects to an environmental gradient in Amazonian streams

Environmental Monitoring and Assessment volume 193, Article number: 763 (2021) Cite this article

Abstract

The increasing land use in the Amazon region has resulted in the widespread substitution of forest areas with pasture and bauxite mining. These land uses reduce the forest cover of streams and modify their characteristics, reducing the diversity of aquatic insect assemblages. In the present study, we aimed to identify the threshold of the assemblages of the larvae of insects of the orders Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera (collectively known as EPT), and adults of the order Odonata, along an environmental gradient of land use and land cover (LULC). We sampled 30 streams along an environmental gradient determined by the proportion of forest, pasture, and bauxite mining observed within the catchment of each stream. We identified 12 taxa associated with forest (nine positively and three negatively) and four negatively associated with pasture. However, no taxa were associated explicitly with the bauxite mining gradient. As forest is converted to pasture, the abundance and frequency of occurrence of the taxa sensitive to pasture are reduced, reflecting their environmental sensitivity and their potential as sentinels of preserved streams. The identification of the thresholds of the EPT and odonates taxa allowed us to determine which of these organisms are positively or negatively associated with the environmental gradient of LULC in Amazonian streams. We hope that the results of the present study can be applied in future biomonitoring programs, particularly for monitoring the response of aquatic insects to the degradation of streams.

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Acknowledgements

We also acknowledge Erlane Cunha, Alana Guterres, Isana Amorim, Híngara Leão, Mylena Cardoso, Lenize Calvão, Ana Luiza Andrade, Ana Luisa Fares, Calebe Maia, Denis Nogueira, Gilberto Nepomuceno Salvador, Naiara Raiol Torres, Thaísa Sala Michelan, and Thiago Augusto Pedroso Barbosa for helping us with the biological sampling. We thank Penagos, C.C.M. for his revision of the manuscript and Prata, E.G. for his assistance with the figure. Finally, we thank Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa e Pós-graduação/Universidade Federal do Pará for financing the review of the English text of the manuscript.

Funding

We are grateful to 33 Forest Capital, CIKEL Ltda, Instituto Floresta Tropical (IFT), Hydro Alunorte Company, and the Biodiversity Research Consortium Brazil-Norway (BRC) for financial and logistical support. We thank the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for financing the projects entitled “Influência dos diferentes tipos de uso do solo sobre a biodiversidade na Amazônia Oriental” (project no. 449314/2014–2), “Tempo de resiliência das comunidades aquáticas após o corte seletivo de madeira na Amazônia Oriental” (project no. 481015/2011–6), and the Hydro Paragominas Company for supporting the project “Monitoring the Aquatic Biota of Streams in Areas of the Paragominas Mining SA, Pará, Brazil” (project no. 011) through the BRC Brazil-Norway. CKSP is grateful to Fundação de Amparo e Desenvolvimento da Pesquisa (FADESP) for granting a scholarship. LBC would also like to thank the CNPq for a scholarship (process no. 154761/2018–4). APJF thanks the BRC Brazil-Norway and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) for granting her a scholarship (process no. 88882.176756/2018–01), and LJ thanks CNPq for a research productivity fellowship (process no. 307597/2016–4). This article is the BRC0034 in the publication series of the Biodiversity Research Consortium Brazil-Norway (BRC).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia, Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, Pará, Brazil

    Ana Paula Justino Faria & Lenize Batista Calvão

  2. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Zoologia, Universidade Federal do Pará e Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Belém, Pará, Brazil

    Carina Kaory Sasahara Paiva & Gabriel Martins Cruz

  3. Laboratório de Ecologia e Conservação, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal Do Pará, Rua Augusto Corrêa, Rua Augusto Corrêa, nº.1, Bairro Guamá, Belém, Pará, CEP 66.075-110, Brazil

    Ana Paula Justino Faria, Carina Kaory Sasahara Paiva, Lenize Batista Calvão, Gabriel Martins Cruz & Leandro Juen

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  1. Ana Paula Justino Faria
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Correspondence to Ana Paula Justino Faria.

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Faria, A.P.J., Paiva, C.K.S., Calvão, L.B. et al. Response of aquatic insects to an environmental gradient in Amazonian streams. Environ Monit Assess 193, 763 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-021-09553-6

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Keywords

  • Land use
  • Deforestation
  • Threshold
  • Aquatic ecosystem
  • Macroinvertebrates