Modelling diatom life forms and ecological guilds for river biomonitoring

Abstract

Biomonitoring is central to the European Union's Water Framework Directive (WFD) and to the French water and aquatic environmental law, but most diatom indices do not separate different anthropogenic impacts. To address this gap, the effect of water chemistry on diatom ecological guilds and life forms was assessed in order to indicate stream perturbations. Generalised additive models (GAMs) were built on a large-scale data set of 1571 samples from the French monitoring network. The relationships between diatom ecological guild and life form metrics were investigated by Principal components analysis and the results predicted by GAMs. The models characterised eight chemical parameters that modified adaptive strategies (ecological guilds) and growth morphology (life forms). Total phosphorus, conductivity, nitrate and pH are the main influencing factors, followed by temperature, dissolved oxygen and organic matter. The findings confirm three groups of diatoms with different adaptive strategies: 1 – fast moving species, 2 – species growing close to the substrate and 3 – species extending to the surface layers of the biofilm. Thirteen diatom metrics displayed a variety of responses to different ranges of the eight chemical parameters. These metrics could be used to help to identify and quantify which chemical alterations are caused by polluted effluents in rivers.