The influence of flow impoundment and river regulation on the distribution of riverine macroinvertebrates at Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky, U.S.A.

Abstract

The effects of impoundment by a low-head dam and hypolimnetic release from a reservoir on benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages were studied in two lowland rivers. The first river (Green River) was initially divided into three zones (impounded, transitional, erosional) according to hydrological characteristics. The entire reach of the second river (Nolin River) was a regime unit. Only the Green River erosional zone was free-flowing with a linear sequence of riffle-run-pool reaches. A detrended correspondence analysis showed that the Green River impounded and transitional zones were taxonomically indistinguishable while the Green River erosional zone and the Nolin River were each distinct. A canonical correspondence analysis revealed that higher surface velocity, higher summer water temperatures and more turbid conditions, and lower water temperatures were contributing parameters to the separation of the Green River erosional zone, Green River transitional/impounded zones, and the Nolin River, respectively, in ordination space. A series of one-way ANOVA’s testing for differences of macroinvertebrates assemblages between the three Green River zones according to five metrics showed that the Green River erosional zone demonstrated significantly higher values and the transitional and impounded zones were ecologically similar.