Subsidies for monitoring the impact of invasive and superdominant plant species in the management of aquatic biodiversity conservation at the Juréia-Itatins Ecological Station: an approach with macrovertebrates from the Una river

• Grant number: 23/18291-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: March 01, 2024
• End date: September 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology - Applied Ecology
• Agreement: Secretaria de Meio Ambiente, Infraestrutura e Logística - Fundação Florestal
• Principal Investigator: Dalva Maria da Silva Matos
• Grantee: Hugo Henrique Lanzi Saulino
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde (CCBS). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 22/10981-8 - Subsidies for monitoring invasive and over-dominant species and their impacts on diversity and ecosystem services at the Juréia-Itatins Ecological Station, AP.BTA.R

Abstract

Biological invasion is amongst the five main categories of biodiversity threat, where the associations with anthropic alterations enable the establishment and success of many exotic invasive and super-dominant plant species in diverse freshwater ecosystems. In these ecosystems, the aquatic macroinvertebrates communities represent ecological importance to nutrient cycling, as well as, important links between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems promoting the energy transference. This Project aims to evaluate the associations between freshwater macroinvertebrate communities the invasive and exotic or super-dominant plant species as a variable response to the biological invasions in the Barra do Una hydrographic basin localized in the Jureia-Itatins, a federal conservation unit area (UC) in the Atlantic forest biome. The macroinvertebrate community surveys will occur in different freshwater ecosystems in the Jurea-Itatins UC invaded by invasive exotic or super-dominant plant species (previously identified) and not invaded freshwater ecosystems. The landscape characterisation will be determined by available images and maps obtained through image software (i.e. ArcGIS and MAPBIOMAS). The water bodies and their surroundings (i.e. vegetation type, anthropogenic degree and environmental conservation) will be analysed throughout of environmental caracterization protocols available in the literature. The limnological variables will be measured through chemical and fiscs water characteristics such as dissolved oxygen, conductivity and pH with the use of multiparameter probes. The geomorphological characterization as depth and stream width will be measured with the use of tape measure, whilst the superficial water velocity using the floating method. The sampling effort to the freshwater ecosystems will be determined using the rarefaction curve method. Many ecological indices may be utilized to measure the effect of invasive or super-dominant plant species under freshwater macroinvertebrate communities (i.e. Shannon Weaver, Simpson richness, community richness), besides those estimated by multivariate approaches that determine diverse community ecological functional aspects, such as Functional Diversity and food-web analysis. Furthermore, the analysis of indicator species will enable a detailed survey about the environmental filter displayed by invasive or super-dominant plant species, as well as, those taxa that are associated with good environmental conditions of fershwater ecosystems. The obtained data of environmental analysis and invasive or super-dominant plant species composition will be utilized to analyse the effect of interferences in the biodiversity macrofauna. To do this, correlation and multivariate analysis may be inferred concerning alterations effects in the ecological aspects of macroinvertebrate communities. (AU)