Spatial relationships between land-use, habitat, water quality and lotic macroinvertebrates in two Swiss catchments

Abstract

We examined the influence of land-use, habitat, and water quality on the spatial distribution of aquatic macroinvertebrates in two human-dominated catchments in the Swiss Plateau (Gurbe, Monchaltorfer Aa). Land-use in the Gurbe catchment was dominated by agriculture, whereas urban land-use was more common in the Monchaltorfer Aa. Study sites in each catchment were characterized using measures of local habitat conditions, water quality parameters including water temperature, and organic matter resources. A strong longitudinal gradient in temperature, conductivity and nitrogen was evident among sites in the Gurbe catchment, although sites on a main tributary had a strong agricultural signature and deviated from this pattern. Percentage agricultural land-use in the Gurbe was strongly correlated with algal biomass and the water quality PCA axes associated with conductivity, nitrogen (axis-1) and temperature (axis-3). Spatial grouping of sites by water quality was less evident in the Monchaltorfer Aa, except for a strong signal by wastewater treatment plant effluents and partial differences between upper and lower basin sites. Percentage forest and agricultural land-use in the Monchaltorfer Aa were correlated with water quality PCA axis-2, being associated with phosphorus and temperature. Macroinvertebrate densities, taxonomic richness, and axis-1 from a non-metric multidimensional scaling analysis (NMDS) of taxonomic composition were significantly correlated with water quality PCA axis-1 in the Gurbe catchment. Here, macroinvertebrate densities and NMDS axis-1 scores based on taxon relative abundances and densities were correlated with land-use features. Spatial distances between sites also were related to site differences in macroinvertebrates, reflecting the strong longitudinal environmental gradient in the Gurbe. Taxonomic differences between water quality PCA site groups were less pronounced in the Monchaltorfer Aa, although differences were significant for trichopterans, ephemeropterans, chironomids, gastropods and coleopterans. Here, NMDS axis-1 based on taxon relative abundances and densities was correlated with forest land-use. Spatial distances between sites were not evident in macroinvertebrate site differences, reflecting the less pronounced spatial and longitudinal patterns in environmental attributes in this catchment. Our results support the hypothesis that spatial distributions of macroinvertebrates are related to spatial relationships among environmental attributes like land-use, habitat, and water quality in human-dominated catchments that depend on river network complexity, a habitat-filtering template in line with ecological niche theory.