TY - JOUR
T1 - Lake macroinvertebrate assemblages and relationship with natural environment and tourism stress in Jiuzhaigou Natural Reserve, China
AU - Cao, Yong
AU - Wang, Beixin
AU - Zhang, Jie
AU - Wang, Lizhu
AU - Pan, Yangdong
AU - Wang, Quanxi
AU - Jian, Daijun
AU - Deng, Guiping
N1 - This study was supported by a grant from International Science & Technology Cooperation Program of China (2013DFR90670). The authors are grateful to Prof. L.F. Yang at Nanjing Agricultural University, and Dr. Ed DeWalt of Illinois Natural History Survey for their help with identifications of mayflies and stoneflies. Several park staff, particularly Mr. Xiao, provided logistic supports to our field work.
PY - 2016/3
Y1 - 2016/3
N2 - With increasing human population and urbanization, tourism in natural reserves and other protected lands is growing. It is critical to monitor and assess the impacts of tourism on ecosystem health. However, there is a general lack of information on biological communities in natural reserves of developing countries and of tools for assessing human impacts. In the present study, we investigated macroinvertebrate assemblages in nine lakes in Jiuzhaigou Natural Reserve of China. Both benthic (20 dips of D-net) and light-trap samples (2 h) were collected at each lake and all benthic specimens and adults of Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera (EPT) were identified and counted. Water temperature and water quality variables were measured on site or in the Lab. Seventy taxa were recorded and dominated by dipterans and caddisflies. Light traps contributed 47% of taxa richness and 66% of EPT richness at the lakes. Detrended Correspondence Analysis showed that water temperature and tourism index were strongly associated with the changes of assemblage composition. Taxa richness and EPT richness calculated for the composite samples (benthic + light trap) were well fit with Poisson generalized linear model (adjusted R2 = 0.83 and 0.85, respectively), generally decreasing with increasing elevation, tourism index, and total-N. Tourism index was ranked as the top predictor for EPT richness based on multiple model weights, and elevation for taxa richness. In comparison, when based on benthic samples, neither of the metrics could be fitted with the seven environmental variables selected. These findings highlight the benefit of combined use of the sampling methods for lake monitoring and offered an analytical guide to developing biological indicators of lake ecosystem health in protected areas.
AB - With increasing human population and urbanization, tourism in natural reserves and other protected lands is growing. It is critical to monitor and assess the impacts of tourism on ecosystem health. However, there is a general lack of information on biological communities in natural reserves of developing countries and of tools for assessing human impacts. In the present study, we investigated macroinvertebrate assemblages in nine lakes in Jiuzhaigou Natural Reserve of China. Both benthic (20 dips of D-net) and light-trap samples (2 h) were collected at each lake and all benthic specimens and adults of Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera (EPT) were identified and counted. Water temperature and water quality variables were measured on site or in the Lab. Seventy taxa were recorded and dominated by dipterans and caddisflies. Light traps contributed 47% of taxa richness and 66% of EPT richness at the lakes. Detrended Correspondence Analysis showed that water temperature and tourism index were strongly associated with the changes of assemblage composition. Taxa richness and EPT richness calculated for the composite samples (benthic + light trap) were well fit with Poisson generalized linear model (adjusted R2 = 0.83 and 0.85, respectively), generally decreasing with increasing elevation, tourism index, and total-N. Tourism index was ranked as the top predictor for EPT richness based on multiple model weights, and elevation for taxa richness. In comparison, when based on benthic samples, neither of the metrics could be fitted with the seven environmental variables selected. These findings highlight the benefit of combined use of the sampling methods for lake monitoring and offered an analytical guide to developing biological indicators of lake ecosystem health in protected areas.
KW - Altitudinal gradient
KW - Aquatic insects
KW - Benthic sampling methods
KW - EPT
KW - Karst
KW - Lake assessment
KW - Modeling taxa richness
KW - Tourism impact
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.11.023
DO - 10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.11.023
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84949988409
SN - 1470-160X
VL - 62
SP - 182
EP - 190
JO - Ecological Indicators
JF - Ecological Indicators
ER -