Abstract
The aim of this study is to generate a first global overview of pressures and methods used to assess the environmental quality of rivers and streams using macroinvertebrates. In total, 314 peer-review studies were reviewed, published in the period 1997 – 2018, from developing economies in Africa, South-Central America, Mexico and Southern Asia. To establish a global perspective, the results from the literature review were compared to other compiled datasets, biomonitoring manuals, environmental surveys and literature reviews from Europe, North America and Australasia. The literature review from the developing economies showed that sampling was most usual during baseflow, using kick- or Surber sampling, with taxonomical identification levels mostly to genus or family. Assessments were most often done using metrics (singular and multimetrics; > 70% of the applications) and were based on community attributes related to richness and dominance (58% of studies), sensitivity (40%), diversity by heterogeneity (32%) and functional traits (25%). Within each category, the most used metrics were the richness and dominance of Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera (EPT), Biological Monitoring Working Party scoring systems (BMWP/ASPT), Shannon-Wiener diversity and feeding traits. Overall, 92% of the reviewed studies reported that the use of macroinvertebrates, at least in some of their responses, was successful in detecting degradation of environmental quality in the investigated rivers. Given the many similarities in applied methods worldwide, at present, we consider that a global assessment of riverine environmental quality can be feasible by using family level identifications of macroinvertebrate samples. We propose a global common metric (multimetric), comprising three of the most common river assessment metrics from the reviewed literature, but also elsewhere, namely the BMWP/ASPT, Shannon-Wiener diversity and richness of EPT. Recent concerns regarding the global state of nature and consequences for freshwater communities, as reported by the intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services (IPBES), emphasize the urgent need for such a synthesis.
Highlights
The aim of this study is to generate a first global overview of pressures and methods used to assess the envi ronmental quality of rivers and streams using macroinvertebrates
This review aims to fill a gap by providing a first global overview of indicators and methods used in the assessment of environmental quality in rivers by macroinvertebrates
We have searched literature published in peer-review journals dur ing the period 1997–2018 that use riverine macroinvertebrates in the biomonitoring of freshwaters within developing economies in Africa, America-SC, Mexico and Southern Asia (Appendix A), as this covers a period when freshwater biomonitoring and related research activities accelerated in those areas (e.g. Ramírez and Gutierrez-Fonseca, 2020; Resh, 2007)
Summary
The rate of global change witnessed in natural systems during the past half-century is unprecedented in human history (IPBES, 2019). Ecosystems worldwide suffer from multiple large-scale impacts related to pollution, habitat degradation, climate change and introduction of alien species. The need for a global assessment system using cost-effective bioindicators that track changes in ecosystem health and biodiversity is evident. For riverine ecosystems this could be ach ieved in a short-term perspective as there is already a worldwide use of methods that may be comparable in terms of scientific approach and underlying methodology. The long tradition of using bioindicators to assess environmental quality, spanning more than a century in freshwater science (Cairns and Pratt, 1993; Metcalfe-Smith, 1996), has led to the accumulation of a substantial body of knowledge on biological community responses to human-induced stress, as well as a range of assessment methods that possesses a large degree of commonality (Friberg et al, 2011). The present-day widespread use of biological indicators for monitoring is a prime example of the applied use of ecological knowledge that has contributed to maintain and improve the environmental quality of many riverine ecosystems during recent decades (e.g. Birk et al 2010), and which has a significant potential to become instrumental in many developing economies with limited experience of the use of such tools and systems on a national basis
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