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Water Regimes and Macroinvertebrate Assemblages in Floodplain Wetlands of the Murrumbidgee River, Australia

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Abstract

Geomorphic change, water resources development and climate change can alter the timing, frequency, magnitude and duration of replenishment of floodplain wetlands via overbank flows. If we understand the ecological consequences of these hydrological changes, environmental water allocations can be used more effectively to sustain wetland biodiversity and associated ecosystem processes. We analysed long-term monitoring data for 13 wetlands on the floodplain of the Murrumbidgee River in south-eastern Australia to determine how aquatic macroinvertebrate assemblages related to the proportion of time during which a wetland contained water. The more temporary wetlands had significantly different and poorer assemblages than the more permanent ones, with frequency of occurrence significantly negatively related to permanence for eight invertebrate genera and positively related for 17. The invertebrates most strongly associated with more temporary wetlands were mainly crustaceans whose resting stages withstand drying, together with highly mobile insects. Those associated with more permanent wetlands included a prawn, molluscs and less mobile insects. These findings suggest that maintaining a broad spectrum of hydrological regimes at the local scale is necessary if macroinvertebrate diversity on the Murrumbidgee River floodplain is to be sustained.

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Acknowledgement

We thank James Maguire for his many contributions to the Integrated Monitoring of Environmental Flows program and the Australian Water Quality Centre and the former Water Science Laboratories for macroinvertebrate identification. Comments by the editor and two anonymous referees helped to improve the manuscript.

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  1. Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Kensington, NSW, 2052, Australia

    Bruce C. Chessman

  2. Office of Water, PO Box 10, Wagga Wagga, NSW, 2650, Australia

    Lorraine Hardwick

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  1. Bruce C. Chessman
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  2. Lorraine Hardwick
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Correspondence to Bruce C. Chessman.

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Chessman, B.C., Hardwick, L. Water Regimes and Macroinvertebrate Assemblages in Floodplain Wetlands of the Murrumbidgee River, Australia. Wetlands 34, 661–672 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-014-0532-3

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