ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Impact of Selected Abiotic Components
on the Variability of Macrobenthic Community
Structure in Small Watercourses
| 1 | Institute of Technology and Life Sciences, Falenty, Poland |
| 2 | West Pomeranian University of Technology, Department of Hydrobiology, Ichthyology
and Biotechnology of Reproduction, Szczecin, Poland |
| 3 | West Pomeranian University of Technology, Department of Fisheries Management
and Water Protection, Szczecin, Poland |
| 4 | Nicolas Copernicus University, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection,
Chair of Geo-botany and Landscape Planning, Toruń, Poland |
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Submission date: 2018-06-12
Final revision date: 2018-08-23
Acceptance date: 2018-09-04
Online publication date: 2019-08-02
Publication date: 2019-10-23
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2020;29(1):17–23
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
The current study analyzes the impact of physico-chemical and hydrological components on
taxonomic diversity, density and Shannon’s diversity index for micro-benthic communities found in
small lowland rivers. The purpose of this study was to determine major predictors among environmental
factors that have an impact on benthic invertebrate communities dwelling in small rivers, and to compare
the structure of the communities in terms of their abundance, biodiversity and abundance between the
sites. For this purpose we studied a total of 30 sites located in 10 watercourses, where 95 taxa were
identified, including 49 specific species. The study brought evidence of differences in the number of
taxa, biodiversity indices and abundance of micro-benthic communities across specific sites. Ammonium
ions, water velocity and phosphates were found to be major predictors among environmental factors
having impact on benthic communities.
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