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Influence of leaf miners and environmental quality on litter breakdown in tropical headwater streams

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Abstract

Headwater streams subjected to anthropogenic impacts are prone to environmental quality decay, which may affect stream functioning. To investigate the effects of loss of environmental quality in stream functioning, we tested the hypothesis that leaf breakdown is faster in streams with higher environmental quality, and that invertebrate community structure and microbial biomass are negatively affected by habitat simplification resulting from environmental degradation. We submerged Alchornea glandulosa leaves in litter bags in nine streams, in Southern Brazil, in an environmental gradient. We characterized breakdown rates (k), physical in-stream characteristics, abundance of invertebrate taxa, and functional groups and microbial biomass for each stream, with three mesh exclusions (fine, medium, coarse). Breakdown was faster in the most preserved stream (k = − 0.032 ± 0.005) and decreased towards the most disturbed stream (k = − 0.0034 ± 0.001). Breakdown rates were positively associated with underwater habitat complexity, equitability of macroinvertebrate taxa, and abundance of Stenochironomus sp., which together explained 51% of breakdown rate variability. Breakdown rates from the less disturbed streams (n = 7, excluding urban-influenced) were lowest in medium-mesh, intermediate in fine-mesh, and highest in coarse-mesh bags, and the only taxon that differed according to this pattern was the mining-chironomid Stenochironomus sp., which suggests that this taxon had a significant activity of leaf processing.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank members of the Ecologia Energética Laboratory for assistance with data collection and discussion. We also thank Gustavo Henrique Zaia Alves and Patricia Almeida Sacramento for reviews of an earlier draft of this paper, Jorge Luiz Rodrigues Filho and Vinicius Neres-Lima for the assistance with statistics, and Paulo Buosi (in memoriam) for assistance with field work. This work was supported by a PhD grant no 140577/2012-2 to VMC, by a Project grant no 475256/2012-3, and by PROEX—PEA funding, all from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development—CNPq.

Funding

This work was supported by a PhD grant no 140577/2012-2 to VMC, by a Project grant no 475256/2012-3, and by PROEX—PEA funding, all from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development—CNPq.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pós-Graduação em Ecologia de Ambientes Aquáticos Continentais (PEA), Departamento de Biologia (DBI), Centro de Ciências Biológicas (CCB), Universidade Estadual de Maringá (UEM), Maringá, PR, Brazil

    Vivian de Mello Cionek, Fábio Nascimento Oliveira Fogaça, Laryssa Helena Ribeiro Pazianoto, Guilherme Okuda Landgraf & Evanilde Benedito

  2. Núcleo de Pesquisas em Limnologia, Ictiologia e Aquicultura (Nupélia), Centro de Ciências Biológicas (CCB), Universidade Estadual de Maringá (UEM), Maringá, PR, Brazil

    Vivian de Mello Cionek, Fábio Nascimento Oliveira Fogaça, Laryssa Helena Ribeiro Pazianoto, Guilherme Okuda Landgraf & Evanilde Benedito

  3. Departamento de Educação Científica e Tecnológico (DECT), Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina (UDESC), Florianópolis, SC, Brazil

    Vivian de Mello Cionek

  4. Pós-Graduação em Ciência e Tecnologia Ambiental, Universidade do Vale do Itajaí (UNIVALI), Itajaí, SC, Brazil

    Vivian de Mello Cionek

  5. Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Timothy Peter Moulton

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  1. Vivian de Mello Cionek
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Contributions

The authors confirm contribution to the paper as follows: study conception and design: VMC and EBB; TMM; data collection: VMC, FNOF, LHP, and GOL; analysis and interpretation of results: VMC and TMM; FNOF, LHP; and draft manuscript preparation and critical revision: VMC and TMM; FNOF, LHP, EB, and GOL

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10750_2021_4529_MOESM1_ESM.jpg

Fig. S1 Litter bags filled with Alchornea glandulosa leaf packs within the 3-exclusion mesh treatment. Coarse-mesh: 10 mm; Medium-mesh: 2 mm; Fine-mesh: 0.2 mm. Supplementary material 1 (JPG 689 kb)

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Fig. S2 Invertebrate taxonomic differences among streams. A = fine-mesh, B = Medium-mesh, C = coarse-mesh. Supplementary material 2 (TIFF 11294 kb)

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Fig. S3 Invertebrate functional differences among streams. A = fine-mesh, B = Medium-mesh, C = coarse-mesh. Supplementary material 3 (TIFF 11294 kb)

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Microbial biomass (ATP) among mesh exclusion treatments (fine, medium and coarse) in each stream separately along the processing period. F = fine-mesh, M = medium-mesh, C = coarse-mesh. Supplementary material 4 (JPG 228 kb)

Supplementary material 5 (JPG 262 kb)

Supplementary material 6 (DOCX 58 kb)

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de Mello Cionek, V., Fogaça, F.N.O., Moulton, T.P. et al. Influence of leaf miners and environmental quality on litter breakdown in tropical headwater streams. Hydrobiologia 848, 1311–1331 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-021-04529-6

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