The trophic structure of fish communities from streams in the Brazilian Cerrado under different land uses: an approach using stable isotopes

The aim of this study was to evaluate how distinct land uses can alter the trophic structure of fish communities in streams. For this purpose, nine streams under the influence of three distinct land uses (pasture, sugarcane, and natural cover) were evaluated. The structure and isotopic niche of the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Hydrobiologia 2017-07, Vol.795 (1), p.199-217
Main Authors: de Carvalho, Débora Reis, de Castro, Diego M. Parreira, Callisto, Marcos, Moreira, Marcelo Zacharias, Pompeu, Paulo Santos
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Carbon sources
Ecology
Exploitation
Fish
Fishes
Freshwater & Marine Ecology
Isotopes
Land use
Land use controls
Life Sciences
Light emitting diodes
Niches
Nitrogen
Pasture
Plantations
Primary Research Paper
Redundancy
Rivers
Stable isotopes
Streams
Sugarcane
Trophic structure
Zoology
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Summary:The aim of this study was to evaluate how distinct land uses can alter the trophic structure of fish communities in streams. For this purpose, nine streams under the influence of three distinct land uses (pasture, sugarcane, and natural cover) were evaluated. The structure and isotopic niche of the fish communities were investigated by calculating descriptive community-wide metrics based on stable isotopes of δ 13 C and δ 15 N. The largest isotopic niche was observed in fish communities in pasture streams, and the smallest in sugarcane streams. Pasture streams exhibited greater ranges of carbon sources exploited by fishes, higher trophic diversity, and lower trophic redundancy. In contrast, sugarcane streams had greater ranges of nitrogen exploited by fishes and showed the smaller trophic diversity, higher trophic redundancy, and uniformity. Sugarcane was also the only land use that exerted a negative influence on community isotopic niche width. Natural cover streams in turn, showed lower trophic uniformity and exhibited intermediate values for all remaining metrics. We conclude that fish communities residing in streams influenced by pastures displayed characteristics that led to greater trophic diversity, and fish communities influenced by sugarcane plantations were more negatively affected by this land use.
ISSN:0018-8158
1573-5117
DOI:10.1007/s10750-017-3130-6