State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing 100012, China; China National Environmental Monitoring Centre, Beijing 100012, China.
China National Environmental Monitoring Centre, Beijing 100012, China; College of Water Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
Environ Int. 2024 Jun;188:108745. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2024.108745. Epub 2024 May 12.
One of the fundamental objectives in ecology is to investigate the ecological processes and associated factors governing the abundance and spatial distribution patterns of biodiversity. However, the reaction of biological communities to environmental degradation remains relatively unknown, even for ecologically crucial communities like macroinvertebrates in aquatic ecosystems. Here, we sampled 117 locations to quantify relative contributions of geographical and environmental factors, including water quality, land use, climate, and hydrological factors, to determine the absolute and relative compositions of macroinvertebrate communities and their spatial distribution in the Yellow River Basin (YRB), the sixth-longest river system on Earth. We assessed relative roles of species sorting and dispersal in determining macroinvertebrate community structure along YRB. Our results demonstrated that alpha and beta diversity indices showed an increase from the up- to low-reaches of YRB. The middle and low-reaches exhibited elevated species diversity and both regions exhibited relatively stable community compositions. The biodiversity of macroinvertebrates was influenced by a combination of geographical factors and environmental variables, with environmental factors predominantly serving as the principal determinants. Results of multiple linear regression and variance decomposition showed that the effect of environmental factors was approximately three times greater than that of spatial factors. These findings provide support for the hypothesis that species sorting, driven by environmental gradients, plays a significant role in shaping the community structure of macroinvertebrates in running water ecosystems at the basin scales. Moreover, the factors contributing to substantial shifts in biodiversity across different segments of YRB indicate that distinct river sections have been influenced by varying stressors, with downstream areas being more susceptible to the impacts of water pollution and urbanization resulting from human activities.
生态学的基本目标之一是研究生态过程以及控制生物多样性丰度和空间分布模式的相关因素。然而，生物群落对环境退化的反应仍然知之甚少，即使对于生态上至关重要的群落，如水生生态系统中的大型无脊椎动物也是如此。在这里，我们采样了 117 个地点，以量化地理和环境因素（包括水质、土地利用、气候和水文因素）的相对贡献，以确定绝对和相对组成的大型无脊椎动物群落及其在黄河流域（YRB）的空间分布，YRB 是地球上第六长的水系。我们评估了物种分类和扩散在确定 YRB 沿线大型无脊椎动物群落结构中的相对作用。我们的结果表明，α和β多样性指数从 YRB 的上游到下游呈增加趋势。中游和下游表现出较高的物种多样性，两个区域都表现出相对稳定的群落组成。大型无脊椎动物的生物多样性受到地理因素和环境变量的综合影响，其中环境因素主要起决定作用。多元线性回归和方差分解的结果表明，环境因素的影响大约是空间因素的三倍。这些发现支持了这样一种假设，即由环境梯度驱动的物种分类在塑造流域尺度流水生态系统大型无脊椎动物群落结构方面起着重要作用。此外，对 YRB 不同河段生物多样性的重大变化做出贡献的因素表明，不同的河段受到不同的压力的影响，下游地区更容易受到水污染和人类活动导致的城市化的影响。
