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Comparing impacts of metal contamination on macroinvertebrate and fish assemblages in a northern Japanese river

Researchers have long assessed the ecological impacts of metals in running waters, but few such studies investigated multiple biological groups. Our goals in this study were to assess the ecological impacts of metal contamination on macroinvertebrates and fishes in a northern Japanese river receivin...

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Autores principales: Namba, Hiroki, Iwasaki, Yuichi, Morita, Kentaro, Ogino, Tagiru, Mano, Hiroyuki, Shinohara, Naohide, Yasutaka, Tetsuo, Matsuda, Hiroyuki, Kamo, Masashi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7847197/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33569256
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10808
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author Namba, Hiroki
Iwasaki, Yuichi
Morita, Kentaro
Ogino, Tagiru
Mano, Hiroyuki
Shinohara, Naohide
Yasutaka, Tetsuo
Matsuda, Hiroyuki
Kamo, Masashi
author_facet Namba, Hiroki
Iwasaki, Yuichi
Morita, Kentaro
Ogino, Tagiru
Mano, Hiroyuki
Shinohara, Naohide
Yasutaka, Tetsuo
Matsuda, Hiroyuki
Kamo, Masashi
author_sort Namba, Hiroki
collection PubMed
description Researchers have long assessed the ecological impacts of metals in running waters, but few such studies investigated multiple biological groups. Our goals in this study were to assess the ecological impacts of metal contamination on macroinvertebrates and fishes in a northern Japanese river receiving treated mine discharge and to evaluate whether there was any difference between the metrics based on macroinvertebrates and those based on fishes in assessing these impacts. Macroinvertebrate communities and fish populations were little affected at the downstream contaminated sites where concentrations of Cu, Zn, Pb, and Cd were 0.1–1.5 times higher than water-quality criteria established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. We detected a significant reduction in a few macroinvertebrate metrics such as mayfly abundance and the abundance of heptageniid mayflies at the two most upstream contaminated sites with metal concentrations 0.8–3.7 times higher than the water-quality criteria. There were, however, no remarkable effects on the abundance or condition factor of the four dominant fishes, including masu salmon (Oncorhynchus masou). These results suggest that the richness and abundance of macroinvertebrates are more sensitive to metal contamination than abundance and condition factor of fishes in the studied river. Because the sensitivity to metal contamination can depend on the biological metrics used, and fish-based metrics in this study were limited, it would be valuable to accumulate empirical evidence for ecological indicators sensitive to metal contamination within and among biological groups to help in choosing which groups to survey for general environmental impact assessments in metal-contaminated rivers.
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spelling pubmed-78471972021-02-09 Comparing impacts of metal contamination on macroinvertebrate and fish assemblages in a northern Japanese river Namba, Hiroki Iwasaki, Yuichi Morita, Kentaro Ogino, Tagiru Mano, Hiroyuki Shinohara, Naohide Yasutaka, Tetsuo Matsuda, Hiroyuki Kamo, Masashi PeerJ Ecology Researchers have long assessed the ecological impacts of metals in running waters, but few such studies investigated multiple biological groups. Our goals in this study were to assess the ecological impacts of metal contamination on macroinvertebrates and fishes in a northern Japanese river receiving treated mine discharge and to evaluate whether there was any difference between the metrics based on macroinvertebrates and those based on fishes in assessing these impacts. Macroinvertebrate communities and fish populations were little affected at the downstream contaminated sites where concentrations of Cu, Zn, Pb, and Cd were 0.1–1.5 times higher than water-quality criteria established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. We detected a significant reduction in a few macroinvertebrate metrics such as mayfly abundance and the abundance of heptageniid mayflies at the two most upstream contaminated sites with metal concentrations 0.8–3.7 times higher than the water-quality criteria. There were, however, no remarkable effects on the abundance or condition factor of the four dominant fishes, including masu salmon (Oncorhynchus masou). These results suggest that the richness and abundance of macroinvertebrates are more sensitive to metal contamination than abundance and condition factor of fishes in the studied river. Because the sensitivity to metal contamination can depend on the biological metrics used, and fish-based metrics in this study were limited, it would be valuable to accumulate empirical evidence for ecological indicators sensitive to metal contamination within and among biological groups to help in choosing which groups to survey for general environmental impact assessments in metal-contaminated rivers. PeerJ Inc. 2021-01-27 /pmc/articles/PMC7847197/ /pubmed/33569256 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10808 Text en ©2021 Namba et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Ecology
Namba, Hiroki
Iwasaki, Yuichi
Morita, Kentaro
Ogino, Tagiru
Mano, Hiroyuki
Shinohara, Naohide
Yasutaka, Tetsuo
Matsuda, Hiroyuki
Kamo, Masashi
Comparing impacts of metal contamination on macroinvertebrate and fish assemblages in a northern Japanese river
title Comparing impacts of metal contamination on macroinvertebrate and fish assemblages in a northern Japanese river
title_full Comparing impacts of metal contamination on macroinvertebrate and fish assemblages in a northern Japanese river
title_fullStr Comparing impacts of metal contamination on macroinvertebrate and fish assemblages in a northern Japanese river
title_full_unstemmed Comparing impacts of metal contamination on macroinvertebrate and fish assemblages in a northern Japanese river
title_short Comparing impacts of metal contamination on macroinvertebrate and fish assemblages in a northern Japanese river
title_sort comparing impacts of metal contamination on macroinvertebrate and fish assemblages in a northern japanese river
topic Ecology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7847197/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33569256
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10808
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