Response of cladoceran assemblages to restoration of riparian vegetation: A case study in a tropical reservoir of Brazil
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Riparian vegetation is important for aquatic ecosystems, since it provides habitat for many species, controls fluvial erosion, and functions as a biological filter of pollutants between terrestrial and aquatic zones. Riparian vegetation also serves as wildlife habitat and ecological corridors, retains sediment, and protects aquatic ecosystems from agrochemical contamination (Lowrance, 1998; Micheli and Kirchner, 2002). Additionally, these vegetation strips shape habitat heterogeneity and modulate the input of dissolved organic matter, which is used as an allochthonous resource by aquatic organisms (Zalewski et al., 1995; France et al., 1996; Cecilio et al., 2004; Dodson et al., 2005; Tundisi et al., 2008; Seger et al., 2012).
Despite its ecological importance, riparian vegetation has been removed from the margins of waterbodies around the world, due to human occupation and development of industry and agriculture near aquatic systems (Basińska et al., 2014; Chen et al., 2019). Previous studies in subtropical areas have reported that input of dissolved inorganic matter from riparian forests positively affected the abundance and richness of zooplankton species (Carpenter et al., 2005; Czerniawski, 2013; Dodson et al., 2007; Watkins et al., 2011). However, no information is available concerning the effect of riparian forest on zooplankton communities of rivers modified by the construction of reservoirs in tropical ecosystems.
Replanting riparian vegetation is an effective strategy for restoration of impacted watersheds (Newaz et al., 2019; Tundisi et al., 2008). Some evidence shows that particulate organic carbon sourced from riparian grass can partly support aquatic food webs through the trophic link to zooplankton (Taipale et al., 2014). Cladocerans can dominate the zooplankton of freshwater systems such as reservoirs (Guevara et al., 2009) and are good indicators of environmental quality (Eyto et al., 2002; Seminara et al., 2016), especially in human-impacted ecosystems (Leppänen et al., 2018). In addition, changes in species composition as a response to environmental changes may cause shifts in functional groups, affecting ecosystem functioning (Nevalainen and Luoto, 2017). However, little is known about the responses of crustacean species to restoration of forest vegetation in areas impacted by human occupation, industry, and agriculture.
The relationship between riparian forest conservation and aquatic biota has been insufficiently studied in tropical freshwater systems (Zhao et al., 2014; Braghin et al., 2018). In addition, no information is available regarding whether replanting riparian forests has only short-term or longer-lasting effects on planktonic crustacean communities in tropical systems, and how riparian reforestation could affect the richness, abundance and functional diversity of crustacean species in reservoir systems. The present study tested the hypothesis that replanting riparian vegetation around an impacted reservoir may influence cladoceran communities, by addressing the question of whether cladocerans show differences in richness, abundance and contribution of species to functional groups, among four levels of riparian vegetation conditions: 1) preserved native forest; 2) forest 30 years after replanting; 3) forest 10 years after replanting; and 4) no forest.
Our sampling design allowed us to test, in a space-for-time substitution approach, the responses of cladoceran communities to riparian forest age and spatial distribution. We tested if a short period (10 years) and long period (30 years) after replanting might result in similar patterns of richness, total abundance, and relative contribution of functional groups of cladocerans, compared to an area where the riparian forest has never been removed (preserved native forest) in a tropical reservoir in Brazil. If cladoceran communities from restored zones (10 and 30 years old) have similar richness, abundance and relative contribution of functional groups compared to areas without riparian forest (no-forest zones), the effects of vegetation restoration should be considered negligible for cladoceran communities in this reservoir.
Section snippets
Study area
The study was performed in the Volta Grande Reservoir (20° 02′ 15.52″ S and 48° 13′ 28.38″ W) on the Grande River (part of the Paraná River basin) on the border of Minas Gerais and São Paulo states, Brazil (Freitas and Thomaz, 2011; Viola et al., 2015) (Fig. 1). The reservoir occupies parts of the municipalities of Conceição das Alagoas, Água Comprida and Uberaba in Minas Gerais, and Miguelópolis, Aramina and Igarapava in São Paulo. The reservoir covers an area of approximately 143.4 mil km2
Limnological variables
The environmental variables showed no significant differences among the zones with different riparian vegetation (Kruskal-Wallis, p > 0.05). The results from the ordination analysis (PCA) did not indicate a relationship between the spatial limnological features of the reservoir and the types of riparian vegetation. The mean temperature was 24.8 ± 2 °C and the mean pH was 7.16 ± 0.78. The mean dissolved-oxygen concentration, electrical conductivity and total suspended solids were 8.9 ± 0.9 mg∙L–1
Discussion
The present study showed that different conditions of riparian vegetation (presence and time since replanting) significantly affected the richness, abundance and community structure of cladocerans of a tropical reservoir system in Brazil, and suggested that besides being indicators of water quality in lakes (Eyto et al., 2002; Jeppesen et al., 2011), cladocerans are good indicators of riparian vegetation conditions in tropical reservoirs. Our results do not agree with the findings of Pearson et
Authorship contributions
Conception and design of the study: Eskinazi-Sant’Anna, EM; Leite, MGP. Acquisition of data: Eskinazi-Sant’Anna, EM; Leite, MGP. Analysis and/or interpretation of data: Santos, GS; Eskinazi-Sant’Anna, EM; Cortez-Silva, EE. Drafting the manuscript: Santos, GS; Eskinazi-Sant’Anna, EM; Cortez-Silva, EE. Revising the manuscript critically for important intellectual content: Santos, GS; Eskinazi-Sant’Anna, EM. Approval of the version of the manuscript to be published: Cortez-Silva, EE; Santos, GS;
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors report no declarations of interest.
Acknowledgements
This study was made possible by the high quality of public universities in Brazil, and their long-standing tradition of training qualified professionals, in spite of the current Brazilian Federal Government’s unwillingness to recognize the importance of public universities, science and biodiversity. CEMIG and FAPEMIG provided financial support to the project (CRA-APQ03055/1). To all staff members of Volta Grande Station for their assistance during field work. We are very grateful to the boatman
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