Effect of spates and land use on macroinvertebrate community in Neotropical Andean streams

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of monsoonal spates and land uses on abundance, richness, diversity, and evenness of benthic macroinvertebrates in streams, and whether these factors interacted with each other to influence community structure. Two groups of streams with different underlying disturbance profiles were studied. One group was in a native forest (non-degraded area) and experienced only spate, and the other group drained an area degraded by agriculture and cattle grazing, and so was subject to two types of disturbances. Spates produced a strong decline in invertebrate abundance and an increase in evenness, whereas changes in land uses caused an increase in abundance of tolerant taxa and a significant decline in richness, diversity, and evenness. Differences in richness and Oligochaeta abundance between land uses were mostly evident in the pre-spate period due to low water levels magnifying some physicochemical changes caused by ecosystem degradation. Canonical correspondence analysis indicated that degraded sites had the highest conductivity, nitrate, pH, and water temperature. Upstream non-degraded streams generally exhibited higher dissolved oxygen values. Taxa such as Psychodidae and Tipulidae, Camelobaetidius penai, Austrelmis spp. (adult), Macrelmis spp. (adult), and Marilia spp. dominated in non-degraded sites, while Tricorythodes popayanicus, Caenisludicra, Dodecabates dodecaporus, Atractides sp., and Torrenticola columbiana were abundant in downstream degraded streams. These two groups of taxa may be useful biological indicators of water quality in streams of northwestern Argentina.