Lin Qiaoyan, Zhang Yixin, Marrs Rob, Sekar Raju, Wu Naicheng, Luo Xin
The XIPU Institution, and Department of Health and Environmental Sciences, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China.
School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2022 Jan;29(1):677-689. doi: 10.1007/s11356-021-15559-x. Epub 2021 Aug 2.
In recent decades, the biodiversity of freshwater environments has decreased sharply due to anthropogenic disturbances that damaged ecosystem structures and functions. Habitat restoration has emerged as an important method to mitigate the degradation of river ecosystems. Although in many cases a post-project monitoring has been promoted to access the restoration progress, it is still unclear how aquatic community changes following river habitat restoration in China. Macroinvertebrate communities intermediately positioned within ecosystem food webs play a key role in ecosystem processes within river ecosystem, driving energy flow and nutrient cycling. Here, benthic macroinvertebrates are used as bio-indicators to assess the ecosystem health of degraded urban rivers, restored urban rivers, and undisturbed rivers. This study aims to determine (i) how habitat restoration influences macroinvertebrates diversity and how this compared to degraded and reference conditions; (ii) how did macroinvertebrate community compositions differ in restored, degraded, and reference sites; and (iii) the environmental factors shaping macroinvertebrate communities. Habitat restoration significantly increased the diversity and richness of macroinvertebrate community and intolerant species and shifted the community composition towards reference status. Habitat characteristics and water chemistry, including substrate diversity, water velocity, and both nutrients (TN) and organic pollutants (TOC), appeared to shape the turnover of these communities. Habitat characteristics contributed to most of the variation of the entire macroinvertebrate community. Our research indicates that habitat restoration is an efficient approach to restore the aquatic community and hence improve river ecosystem health for freshwater conservation and sustainable management in Zhejiang province. This study strengthens our understanding of the changes of macroinvertebrate community after habitat restoration and important controlling variables that attribute to these changes, which provides an important guidance for future freshwater management.
近几十年来，由于人为干扰破坏了生态系统结构和功能，淡水环境的生物多样性急剧下降。栖息地恢复已成为减轻河流生态系统退化的重要方法。尽管在许多情况下已推行项目后监测以评估恢复进展，但在中国河流栖息地恢复后水生群落如何变化仍不清楚。处于生态系统食物网中间位置的大型无脊椎动物群落在河流生态系统的生态过程中发挥着关键作用，推动能量流动和养分循环。在此，底栖大型无脊椎动物被用作生物指标，以评估退化城市河流、恢复城市河流和未受干扰河流的生态系统健康状况。本研究旨在确定：（i）栖息地恢复如何影响大型无脊椎动物多样性，以及与退化和参照条件相比情况如何；（ii）恢复、退化和参照地点的大型无脊椎动物群落组成有何不同；以及（iii）塑造大型无脊椎动物群落的环境因素。栖息地恢复显著增加了大型无脊椎动物群落和不耐受物种的多样性和丰富度，并使群落组成向参照状态转变。栖息地特征和水化学，包括底物多样性、水流速度以及养分（总氮）和有机污染物（总有机碳），似乎塑造了这些群落的更替。栖息地特征促成了整个大型无脊椎动物群落的大部分变化。我们的研究表明，栖息地恢复是恢复水生群落从而改善浙江省河流生态系统健康以实现淡水保护和可持续管理的有效方法。本研究加深了我们对栖息地恢复后大型无脊椎动物群落变化以及导致这些变化的重要控制变量的理解，为未来淡水管理提供了重要指导。
