Increased need for freshwater for human uses from the mid-1900s has severely impacted rivers and floodplain wetlands so that they are some of the most seriously degraded environments in the world. Research and monitoring in this area to date has focused on understanding ‘flow-ecology’ relationships, without investigating the mechanisms underlying them. The use of species traits offers a tool for defining mechanistic connections between biotic responses and environmental conditions. We examined nine macroinvertebrate trait categories in both wetlands and channels to determine whether their profiles responded to hydrology in the Gwydir River system in the northern Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. Trait responses were shown for the wetlands but not the river channels. Twelve traits showed positive relationships with the time the wetlands were connected to their river channels. It is unclear the reason(s) why the river channel invertebrate traits did not respond to hydrology. However, the use of environmental flows in the river systems may be important to other aspects of macroinvertebrate assemblages such as their role in food webs to support higher-order consumers.

中文翻译：

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水文对河道和湿地栖息地大型无脊椎动物性状的影响

自 1900 年代中期以来，人类对淡水的需求不断增加，严重影响了河流和洪泛区湿地，使其成为世界上退化最严重的环境之一。迄今为止，该领域的研究和监测主要集中在理解“流动生态”关系上，而没有调查其背后的机制。物种特征的使用为定义生物反应和环境条件之间的机械联系提供了一种工具。我们检查了湿地和河道中的九种大型无脊椎动物特征类别，以确定它们的概况是否对澳大利亚墨累-达令盆地北部 Gwydir 河系统的水文做出反应。显示了湿地的特征响应，但没有显示河道。十二个特征与湿地与其河道相连的时间呈正相关。目前尚不清楚河道无脊椎动物性状对水文没有反应的原因。然而，河流系统中环境流量的使用可能对大型无脊椎动物群落的其他方面很重要，例如它们在食物网中的作用，以支持高阶消费者。