Assessing of biotic integrity of the fish community in a heavily impacted segment of a tropical river in Brazil

Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology

Benjamin Carvalho Teixeira Pinto¹  Francisco Gerson Araújo¹ 

[1] ,Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro Laboratório de Ecologia de Peixes Seropédica RJ ,Brasil

关键词: Fish community;    IBI;    environmental quality;    habitats;    tropical rivers;    biomonitoring;   

DOI  :  10.1590/S1516-89132007000300015

来源: SciELO

【 摘 要 】

A index of biotic integrity (IBI) was applied to assess the ecological health at seven sites of ca. 338 km extension of the Paraíba do Sul river, in bracketing a large urban-industrial complex. The aim was to evaluate the index response to changes in environmental quality during two seasons (winter/dry versus. summer/wet). Eight metrics were selected to IBI in three categories: 1) species richness and habitat composition; 2) indicator species; and 3) trophic structure. The IBI, based on the least impacted regional condition, showed the highest value at the most upstream site (Queluz=km 0) - Acceptable, then decreasing downstream and reaching the lowest record at Volta Redonda (km 125) - Impacted; afterwards there was an increasing quality toward the most downstream sites until reaching better scores at Além Paraíba (km 338) - Moderate Impacted/ Acceptable. During the winter/dry seasons a clearer spatial trend was detected when compared with oscillations in summer/wet. The IBI proved to be a suitable tool to evaluate environmental quality in this tropical and very altered large river, since it was sensitive to non-source point pollution changes, which occurred all over the studied area.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC   
 All the contents of this journal, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License