Ecologia de invertebrados aquáticos em riachos de altitude do planalto de Poços de Caldas, MG, Brasil
Resumen
Streams are unique and isolated environments that include a wide range of species. These
species have close relations with these ecosystems and may have different patterns of
ecological responses. Thus, this study compared the communities of aquatic invertebrates of
twenty-six (26) first to third order streams of three watersheds in a high-altitude region with
different soil uses, chiefly eucalyptus plantations. Furthermore, investigated which component
(space or environmental) and approach were decisive in the structuring of these
metacommunities and relates them to the functional evolutionary traits of different taxonomic
groups. A limnological comparison was made of the streams and watersheds using
permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA). The structure of the
communities was compared based on richness, abundance, and diversity (alpha and beta) and
some metrics to determine environmental quality. The biological composition was compared
by means of exclusive and shared taxa and frequencies of occurrence and dominance them.
Was applied a Partial Redundancy Analysis – RDA- partial to verify the proportion of
explicability of the environmental and spatial components. Limnological differences were
detected between the three watersheds themselves and the streams in the watersheds. Richness
and abundance accompanied the decreasing pattern for the watersheds from the best to the
worst environmental quality and highlighted the differences between the watersheds in
comparisonto the diversity indices. In general and in all three watersheds, most of the
identified taxa were rare. Among the indicator taxa, the more sensitive clades had a higher
probability of occurrence in the more preserved locations, while the more tolerant clades were
more likely to occur in more impacted environments. The studied communities were less
influenced by the spatial component and the environmental component was crucial to all
taxonomic groups, albeit individually for each taxon. Both components correlated with the
selected functional traits. In the studied region, changes to the landscape, especially resulting
from the introduction of eucalyptus and the lack of conservation practices, can determine the
elimination of resident aquatic invertebrates.