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Spatiotemporal changes in diatom ecological profiles: implications for biomonitoring

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Abstract

Diatom indices developed in certain geographic regions are frequently used elsewhere, despite the strong evidence that such metrics are less useful when applied in regions other than that where species–environment relationships were originally assessed, showing that species have particular autoecological requirements in different geographic areas. In this study, we define the ecological profiles for selected environmental variables in three common epilithic diatom species in the Duero Basin (NW Spain), comparing our results with data gathered from different geographic regions. We assess differences in autoecological parameters obtained from the northern and southern subbasins, and from different years, in order to observe whether significant small-scale, spatiotemporal changes exist. Our results show that there are variations in species’ autoecological parameters between different regions. Furthermore, there are significant changes comparing northern and southern Duero subbasins for certain species and physiochemical variables. Additionally, different autoecologies have been observed for certain diatoms and environmental factors comparing two different years. It can be concluded that freshwater diatom autoecologies can vary between different geographic areas. This implies that, in order to improve water-quality bioassessments, autoecology-based diatom metrics should be developed by quantifying species distributions along environmental gradients, using datasets representative of the areas or river types where the metrics will be applied.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the Duero Basin Authority, Spain (CHD, Confederación Hidrográfica del Duero) through the contract Servicio para la elaboración de un atlas de diatomeas bentónicas de la Cuenca del Duero (fase III de III). Authors are indebted to L. Bahls, N. Cameron, and A. Luján who kindly provided data shown in Tables 1–4. Two anonymous referees are thanked for their valuable comments on the manuscript.

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  1. Department of Biodiversity and Environmental Management, University of León, 24071, León, Spain

    Irene Álvarez-Blanco, Cristina Cejudo-Figueiras, Eloy Bécares & Saúl Blanco

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  1. Irene Álvarez-Blanco
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  2. Cristina Cejudo-Figueiras
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  3. Eloy Bécares
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  4. Saúl Blanco
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Correspondence to Saúl Blanco.

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Álvarez-Blanco, I., Cejudo-Figueiras, C., Bécares, E. et al. Spatiotemporal changes in diatom ecological profiles: implications for biomonitoring. Limnology 12, 157–168 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10201-010-0333-1

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