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Wood_Hill et al floodplain_Manuscript - HYDR-D-15-01185-1.pdf (442.93 kB)

Macroinvertebrate community composition and diversity in ephemeral and perennial ponds on unregulated floodplain meadows in the UK

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journal contribution
posted on 2016-08-03, 10:34 authored by Matthew J. Hill, R.G. Death, Kate MathersKate Mathers, David RyvesDavid Ryves, James C. White, Paul WoodPaul Wood
© 2016 Springer International Publishing SwitzerlandPonds are common and abundant landscape features in temperate environments, particularly on floodplains where lateral connectivity with riverine systems persists. Despite their widespread occurrence and importance to regional diversity, research on the ecology and hydrology of temperate ephemeral and perennial floodplain ponds lags behind that of other shallow waterbodies. This study examines the aquatic macroinvertebrate diversity of 34 ponds (20 perennial and 14 ephemeral) on two unregulated riverine floodplain meadows in Leicestershire, UK. Perennial ponds supported nearly twice the diversity of ephemeral ponds. Despite frequent inundation of floodwater and connectivity with other floodplain waterbodies, ephemeral ponds supported distinct invertebrate communities when compared to perennial ponds. When the relative importance of physical, chemical, biological and spatial characteristics was examined, physical and chemical characteristics were found to account for more variation in community composition than biological or spatial variables. The results suggest that niche characteristics rather than neutral colonisation processes dominate the structure of invertebrate communities of floodplain ponds. The maintenance of pond networks with varying hydroperiod lengths and environmental characteristics should be encouraged as part of conservation management strategies to provide heterogeneous environmental conditions to support and enhance aquatic biodiversity at a landscape scale.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Geography and Environment

Published in

Hydrobiologia

Pages

1 - 14

Citation

HILL, M.J. ...et al., 2016. Macroinvertebrate community composition and diversity in ephemeral and perennial ponds on unregulated floodplain meadows in the UK. Hydrobiologia, 793 (1), pp. 95-108.

Publisher

© Springer International Publishing

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2016

Notes

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10750-016-2856-x

ISSN

0018-8158

eISSN

1573-5117

Language

  • en