Abstract
Population growth in urban areas changes freshwater ecosystems, and this can have consequences for macrophyte communities as can be seen in the municipalities that border the Capibaribe River, Pernambuco, Brazil. This study reports the effects of urbanization on the composition and structure of macrophyte communities in areas along that river. The following urbanized and non-urbanized sampling sites were chosen: Sites 1 and 2 (municipality of Santa Cruz do Capibaribe), Sites 3 and 4 (municipality of Toritama), and Sites 5 and 6 (metropolitan region of Recife). These sites were visited every two months from January to July 2013 to observe seasonal variation (wet and dry seasons). Thirty-one species were identified. Generally, the non-urbanized sites had a higher number of species. Multivariate analyses indicated significant overall differences between urbanized and non-urbanized areas (R = 0.044; p < 0.001) and between seasons (R = 0.018; p < 0.019). Owing to the large variation in physical, chemical, and biological characteristics between urbanized and non-urbanized areas, we found that urbanization significantly influenced the floristic composition and structure of macrophyte communities.
Highlights
Aquatic macrophytes are plants visible to the naked eye, regardless of taxonomic classification, that present submerged or floating photosynthetic parts in swamps and other aquatic environments
Recent studies on aquatic macrophytes in Brazil have focused mainly on lentic and artificial systems, with fewer studies being devoted to lotic systems (Thomaz and Bini, 2003), important studies on macrophyte seasonal dynamics on the Amazon River have been published by Junk and Piedade (1997) and Piedade et al (2010)
Poaceae had good representation in our study, as it did in the study of Carvalho et al (2005), which evaluated the level of macrophyte infestation on the Tiete River and recorded five species (33.3% of the total), and in the study of Henry-Silva et al (2010), which identified five species (11.36% of the total) of this family in river ecosystems of the Brazilian semi-arid region
Summary
Aquatic macrophytes are plants visible to the naked eye, regardless of taxonomic classification, that present submerged or floating photosynthetic parts in swamps and other aquatic environments. They play an important role in the ecosystem and are the base of the food chain, participating directly in nutrient cycling (Esteves and Camargo, 1986). One of the main environmental problems in aquatic systems is eutrophication, the enrichment of water bodies by nutrients such as phosphates and nitrogen compounds. The population of weed species can increase as a result of nutrient enrichment from other environmental sources (Demars and Harper, 1998). Eutrophication enables the colonization of vast areas, resulting in changes in water quality and damage to various ecosystem uses (Thomaz, 2002; Pompeo, 2008)
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