3 research outputs found
Longitudinal river zonation in the tropics: examples of fish and caddisflies from endorheic Awash river, Ethiopia
Primary Research PaperSpecific concepts of fluvial ecology are
well studied in riverine ecosystems of the temperate
zone but poorly investigated in the Afrotropical
region. Hence, we examined the longitudinal zonation
of fish and adult caddisfly (Trichoptera) assemblages
in the endorheic Awash River (1,250 km in length),
Ethiopia. We expected that species assemblages are
structured along environmental gradients, reflecting
the pattern of large-scale freshwater ecoregions. We
applied multivariate statistical methods to test for differences in spatial species assemblage structure and
identified characteristic taxa of the observed biocoenoses
by indicator species analyses. Fish and
caddisfly assemblages were clustered into highland
and lowland communities, following the freshwater
ecoregions, but separated by an ecotone with highest
biodiversity. Moreover, the caddisfly results suggest
separating the heterogeneous highlands into a forested
and a deforested zone. Surprisingly, the Awash
drainage is rather species-poor: only 11 fish (1
endemic, 2 introduced) and 28 caddisfly species (8
new records for Ethiopia) were recorded from the
mainstem and its major tributaries. Nevertheless,
specialized species characterize the highland forests, whereas the lowlands primarily host geographically
widely distributed species. This study showed that a
combined approach of fish and caddisflies is a
suitable method for assessing regional characteristics
of fluvial ecosystems in the tropicsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio