Riverine landscapes: Biodiversity patterns, disturbance regimes, and aquatic conservation

“Large anurans have proportionally lower rates of water loss than smaller species (Wells 2007).”

“In fluvial corridors, channel movement and sediment dynamics have a huge control over plant spatial complexity, community distribution, and biological diversity (Fonda, 1974; Pautou and Décamps, 1985; Hupp and Osterkamp, 1985; Salo et al., 1986; Bornette and Amoros, 1991; Hughes, 1997; Van Coller et al., 1997; Ward, 1…”

“Lateral connectivity between the channel and floodplain is one of the primary drivers of large-river productivity, biological diversity, and riverine ecosystem health (Bayley, 1995; Junk et al., 1989; Tockner et al., 2000; Ward, 1998), and the lack of lateral connectivity due to channelization, levees, flow regulation…”

“The strong connection between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems is a central issue in understanding ecological processes in freshwater environments (Allan, 2004; Palmer, 2010; Ward, 1998; Wiens, 2002).”

“The modifications of riparian zones increase their vulnerability as well as the vulnerability of the water body because of drastically changing environmental factors essential for the biotic community in the riverbed (Ward 1998; Naiman et al. 2005).”

“Effects of watershed land cover and local habitat on stream ecosystems have long been a focus of stream ecology (Hynes 1975; Vannote et al. 1980; Weins 1989; Ward 1998).”

“Disturbances are frequently associated with processes that erode and deposit sediment or physically damage trees with transported debris or ice (Bendix 1997; Naiman and Décamps 1997; Ward 1998; Johnson 2000; Van Coller et al., 2000; Ward et al., 2002).”

“The study therefore elaborates the patterns in ecological guild structure that can be inferred from the predictions of the river continuum concept (Ward, 1998; Bhat et al., 2012).”

“This landscape perspective is built on an understanding of geomorphic controls, environmental gradients, and relationships between instream habitat and biological communities (Ward 1998).”

“Yet, freshwater habitats have been under constant human pressure (Meybeck, 2003; Vorosmarty et al., 2010) because of the growing demands for water, energy and food (Ward, 1998).”

“Ward (1998) also commented the spatial broad-sc le vegetation zonation, according to elevation gradient of the river floodplain, but the author noticed as well that at finer scale species segregate according to microsite.”

“Human-induced changes to flow regime, flood contact and groundwater level cause a deterioration of the diversity of the riparian landscape (Petts, 1996; Ward, 1998 ).”

“There is so far no unequivocal explanation for this humped pattern, but a number of variables have been suggested, such as substrate heterogeneity, disturbance, plant dispersal, and a mid-domain effect (Nilsson et al., 1989, 1994; Ward, 1998; Dunn, Colwell & Nilsson, 2006).”

“Riparian ecosystems are characterized by complex environmental gradients, which vary in space and time (Ward 1998; Ward et al. 2002; RençfDlt et al. 2005).”

“Riparian zone communities are non-equilibrium systems whose dynamics largely follow hydrological disturbance regimes (Gawler et al., 1987; Naiman et al., 1992; Decamps, 1993; Nilsson et al., 1993; Scarsbrook and Townsend, 1993; Bornette et al., 1998b; Ward, 1998).”

“Faunal inventories and surveys are important, not only as representations of biodiversity, but also because they are excellent tools for conservation, ecosystem management, and environmental protection (Ward 1998) − and they may also lead to the formation of”

“in riparian plant community structure and composition have been observed from the top to the bottom of the riverbanks along hydroperiod gradients (Gregory et al., 1991; Tabacchi et al., 1998; Ward, 1998; Shafroth et al., 2002; Corenblit et al., 2007) and notably over time”

“Natural river landscapes consist of a mosaic of habitats that are tightly connected to each other by water movement [7,8].”

“Riparian habitats are known to increase the number of available microclimates in a landscape and generally support the highest plant biodiversity, particularly in arid regions such as med California (Ward, 1998; Welsh et al., 2005).”

“Other studies indicated an increase in invertebrate richness with hydrological connectivity (Ward 1998; Ward et al. 2002; Amoros, Bornette 2002; Obolewski 2011).”

“Weatherfish belongs to the commercial unremarkable fish species, but also to the fishes crucial for explanation of floodplain areas importance (Ward, 1998) in respect to fish spawning, early ontogenetic stages distribution and dynamics (fishes are a very important indicator group for river integrity estimation – Karr…”

“IDH has been widely discussed with relation to floodplain environments by a number of authors (e.g. Ward 1998; Ward and Tockner 2001; Ward et al., 2002; Amoros and Bornette, 2002; Biswas and Mallik, 2010; Rivaes et al., 2013).”

“The IC reaches consisted of broad alluvial depositional areas typically associated with fl oodplain ecosystems and con fi ned reaches with limited fl oodplains, which ranged from 53 to 812 ha in size.”

“Various dams for hydroelectric power generation are already present, causing both interruptions in river continuum (Ward 1998) and local episodes of water scarcity, leading to trophic web damages and habitat loss.”

“Estos tipos de sistemas son altamente dinámicos, manifestando constantemente cambios en los hábitats (Stanford et al. 1996, Ward et al. 2002), lo que los hace sistemas complejos y diversos, muy sensibles a las perturbaciones generadas por el hombre (Bornette et al. 1998, Ward 1998).”

“1998, WARD 1998).”

“While natural oxbows are among the most biologically diverse aquatic systems in the world (Ward, 1998), in agricultural regions, practices such as stream channelization and removal of riparian vegetation, along with increased drainage from tiles and ditches, profoundly changed natural stream hydrology (e.”

“Longitudinal and lateral connectivity are central to natural rivers [6, 48] and although limited opportunities exist”

“Furthermore, flood events shape and maintain a complex mosaic of riparian landforms and biotic communities, while riparian corridors facilitate the migration of biota and enhance ecological connectivity (Naiman & Décamps, 1997 ; Ward, 1998).”

“Freshwater ecosystems are particularly subject to ever-increasing anthropogenic pressure (Ward 1998; Suhling et al. 2006).”

“Overall, scale is an important aspect within a conceptual model of wetlands, and many recent papers dealing with wetland ecology are considering aspects of scale, whether it is about floodplains ( Ward 1998 ), palustrine coastal wetlands (Rolon et al. 2008), or inland pans and valley bottom wetlands (Tooth and McCarth…”

“Surface- and groundwater are a single resource [46], and as both are influenced by the landscapes in which they flow [5, 34, 42, 43, 45 ], they can be better managed by using a catchment rather than a local scale approach to ensure long-term ecological and socio-economic sustainability.”

“Floodplain connectivity is essential for population persistence of many freshwater organisms (Ward 1998; Lewis et al. 2001).”

“The ecological sustainability of these habitats, in turn, relates directly to the degree of lateral hydrological connectivity that persists between the river channel and the floodplain (Poff et al. 1997; Ward 1998; Bornette et al. 1998; Amoros and Bornette 2002; Meitzen and Kupfer 2015).”

“In contrast, channelized rivers are particularly susceptible to rapid warming from solar radiation due to their simplified form, as a consequence of straightening, widening which can reduce depth and increase exposed surface area, and removal of instream or riparian vegetation cover (Brookes, 1989; Tockner et al., 199…”

“Disturbance is one of the single most important influences on spatial and temporal heterogeneity, species diversity, population size, and community composition (Sousa 1984, Ward 1998, Lytle and Poff 2004).”

“australasica selects suitable spawning/nursery habitats at multiple scales across the riverscape (cf. Frissell et al. 1986; Ward 1998).”

“Conservation planning must incorporate the connected nature of drainages, a key factor for the conservation of freshwater biodiversity [52] when understanding how climate change will affect the freshwater biodiversity in Mongolia.”

“This ideally necessitates reinstating river dynamics and connectivity functions with the nearby complementary habitats which characterize flood plains, such as wetlands and riparian forests, as well as extensive farmland (Rohde et al., 2005; Ward, 1998).”

“Surface waters, sub-surface waters, riparian / floodplain systems and associated processes are all integral components of riverine landscapes or “riverscapes”(Ward, 1998).”

“Flooding often erodes the river fronts, while low flood disturbance promotes sedimentation and uniform riparian ecosystems (Ward 1998; Ward and Tockner 2001; Tamai 2004).”

“Connections created by the movement of water give riverscapes a network spatial structure (Carbonneau et al. 2012; Stanford et al. 2017; Ward 1998).”

“…deficit in fresh-water ecosystems, where the complexity inherent in freshwater systems (Ward 1989), and the accompanying heterogeneity of habitats (Ward 1998; Poole 2002), requires data at a large enough spatial extent to capture relevant catchment-scale processes and of a sufficiently high…”

“As principais abordagens incluem a avaliação dos efeitos das mudanças do uso do solo sobre os peixes de riacho (Wiens 1989, Ward 1998, Teresa & Casatti 2012, Teresa et al. 2015) em múltiplas escalas espaciais (Schlosser 1991, Fausch et al. 2002, Townsend et al. 2003b, Gerhard et al. 2004, Gerhard &…”

“In streams, longitudinal zonation and spatially structured fish assemblages are well documented (Huet, 1959; Rahel & Hubert, 1991; Vannote, Minshall, Cummins, Sedell, & Cushing, 1980), but sampling entirely through space is logistically infeasible and subsamples distributed in a manner assumed to be representative of…”

“In addition, freshwater habitats are highly affected by anthropogenic disturbances such as land use conversion and pollution, and hence, the conservation of freshwater biodiversity constitutes a great challenge due to the multiple impacts combined (Ward 1998; Dudgeon et al.”

“exhibit distinctive microhabitats that are attractive to some species (Ward 1998; Kantor et al. 2001),”

“There has been increasing emphases on a systematic view and multi-scale approach to the analysis of these relationships (Poff 1997; Ward 1998; Fausch et al. 2002; Frothingham et al. 2002; Weins 2002; Durance et al. 2006; Marzin et al. 2013).”

“Rivers and their riparian areas can be viewed as open ecosystems interconnected longitudinally, laterally and vertically by hydrological and morphological processes that occur within a temporal hierarchy (Ward, 1998).”

“Moreover, all diversity and richness indices were significantly different among sampling sites (Table 4), although the pattern is not in accordance with the ideal biodiversity pattern exhibited by mayflies and stoneflies (Ward 1998).”

“…in the riparian zones act as filters against the potentially negative impacts of upland processes, such as soil erosion or the inputs of nutrients, and they are used to improve water quality and channel stability (Gregory et al., 1991; Naiman and Décamps, 1997; Ward, 1998; Ward and Tockner, 2001).”

“Floods are normally perceived as a disturbance factor that affects biodiversity of wetlands, particularly the floodplains (Sparks et al., 1990; Junk and Piedade, 1997; Ward, 1998; Keddy, 2000).”