Longitudinal patterns of abundance, diversity and functional feeding guilds of benthic communities in East African tropical high‐altitude streams

In temperate and tropical rivers, macroinvertebrates are commonly utilised for biological monitoring. Therefore, it is important to understand their functional feeding guilds and assemblage structure. However, there have been few studies in high‐altitude rivers in East Africa aimed at assessing macr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:African journal of ecology 2023-12, Vol.61 (4), p.781-793
Main Authors: Benjamin, Joshua M., Abuya, Doreen, Omollo, Beryl, Merimba, Charles
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abundance
Altitude
Ammonia
Benthic communities
Biomonitoring
Dissolved oxygen
Electrical conductivity
Electrical resistivity
Ephemeroptera
Guilds
Heptageniidae
Macroinvertebrates
Office equipment
Predators
Relative abundance
Rivers
Scrapers
Shredding
Streams
Trichoptera
Turbidity
Upstream
Water temperature
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Summary:In temperate and tropical rivers, macroinvertebrates are commonly utilised for biological monitoring. Therefore, it is important to understand their functional feeding guilds and assemblage structure. However, there have been few studies in high‐altitude rivers in East Africa aimed at assessing macroinvertebrate functional guilds. In this study, we examined the macroinvertebrate assemblage characteristics using abundance/diversity metrics and the functional feeding groups (FFGs). We collected physicochemical data and macroinvertebrate samples at seven sites along the Gura River and three sites on the Sagana River. Dissolved oxygen concentration, water temperature, electrical conductivity, pH, turbidity, ammonia, and soluble reactive phosphorus showed significant differences among the sites ( p  
ISSN:0141-6707
1365-2028
DOI:10.1111/aje.13177