The assemblage characteristics of benthic macroinvertebrates in the Yalutsangpo River, the highest major river in the world

Abstract

Aquatic ecosystems of highland rivers are different from those of low altitude rivers because of the specific topography and environmental parameters associated with high altitudes. Yalutsangpo, the upper course of the Brahmaputra River, is the highest major river in the world, flowing from west to east across Tibet, China and pouring into India. Macroinvertebrates were sampled from Yalutsangpo and its tributaries, the Lhasa, Niyang, and Parlong Tsangpo Rivers, from October 2009 to June 2010, to study characters of the highland aquatic ecosystem. Altogether, 110 macroinvertebrate taxa belonging to 57 families and 102 genera were identified from the basin. The biodiversity and composition of macroinvertebrate assemblages were strongly affected by altitude gradients. Local diversity represented by taxa richness and the improved Shannon-Wiener index were high at altitudes of 3,300–3,700 m, among which suitability of habitat was higher due to the better integrated environmental conditions of water temperature, dissolved oxygen, and aquatic vegetation, etc. Macroinvertebrates were grouped into shredders, scrapers, predators, collector-filterers, and collector-gatherers according to their feeding behaviors. It was found that the distributions of the functional feeding groups varied with habitat altitudes. Shredders were present at altitudes of 2,900–4,400 m, while scrapers mainly inhabited altitudes of 3,500–4,500 m, and collector-filterers preferred 3,500–4,000 m.

Even though the local taxa richness was not high at each site, the taxonomic composition and density of the assemblages varied greatly among the different sites, resulting in much higher regional diversity compared to the lowland river with similar flow and substrate conditions. The regional cumulative taxa richness of Yalutsangpo decreased and more families were lost as the altitude increased. However, some families that were newly present as the attitude increased were essential for sustaining the high regional biodiversity. The ordination diagram obtained from Detrended Correspondence Analysis indicated that altitude, river pattern, riverbed structures, bank structures, and flow conditions were the main factors that influenced the macroinvertebrate assemblages in the Yalutsangpo basin.

Keywords

Yalutsangpo basin / high altitude / macroinvertebrate / local diversity / regional diversity

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Ministry of Water Resources of China (200901078), Chinese Postdoctoral Science Foundation-the 6th special funding (2013T60122), International Science and Technology Cooperation Program of China (2011DFA20820), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41071001 and 51209010).

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg