Trophic structure of a fish assemblage in a reference condition river located in a polluted watershed
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Trophic structure of a fish assemblage in a reference condition river located in a polluted watershed Mirella Bisso Alonso & Débora Reis de Carvalho Carlos Bernardo Mascarenhas Alves & Paulo Santos Pompeu
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Received: 8 April 2020 / Accepted: 27 September 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract A deep investigation on the trophic structure of a fish assemblage in a reference condition river is important since allow the comparison and determination of the extent in which other sites are degraded. It is especially relevant when we consider a reference condition river located in a basin under influence of several anthropogenic activities, as is the case of the Rio Cipó, an important tributary of the polluted Rio das Velhas Basin, Brazil. We aimed to characterize the trophic structure of the fish assemblage of the Rio Cipó using the carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotopes of fish and several available food resources sampled at two sites along the Rio Cipó in the dry and wet seasons. We found that the δ15N of fishes change among trophic guilds, but not change between sites and seasons. The δ13C values in turn, varies among trophic guilds and between seasons, and the changes between sites are not very expressive. Detritivorous fish presented the greatest variation in δ 13 C values. Although all detritivorous species appeared to consume the same
basal resources (algae, periphyton, POM and CPOM), the proportion of assimilation of each resource varied among them. Two individuals of Myleus micans (herbivorous) and two of Piabarchus stramineus (omnivorous), were found to differ substantially within the food web by presenting the most enriched values of δ15N and δ13C in the wet season at the site close to the confluence with other rivers. These outliers had influence in the broad isotopic niches of herbivorous and omnivorous fish. This result suggest that these species have a large spatial range and may be feeding in places with resources enriched in δ15N and δ13C, outside of the Rio Cipó, as well as highlights the importance of considering the influence of downstream polluted areas on the trophic structure of this reference condition river. Keywords Food web . Ichthyofauna . Stable isotopes . Carbon . Nitrogen
Introduction Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-020-01033-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. M. B. Alonso : D. R. de Carvalho : P. S. Pompeu (*) Laboratório de Ecologia de Peixes, Departamento de Ecologia e Conservação, Universidade Federal de Lavras, Lavras, MG, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] C. B. M. Alves Laboratório Nuvelhas, Projeto Manuelzão, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
An important way to better understand the impacts of anthropogenic activities on aquatic ecosystems is to assess the biological state of an ecosystem where the human activity is minimal or non-existent (Martins et al. 2018). Such sites are referred to as “reference conditions”. Evaluatio
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