The relative influence of catchment and site variables on fish and macroinvertebrate richness in cerrado biome streams

Abstract

Landscape and site-scale data analyses aid the interpretation of biological data and thereby help us develop more cost-effective natural resource management strategies. Our study focused on environmental influences on stream assemblages and we evaluated how three classes of environmental variables (geophysical landscape, land use and cover, and site habitat), influence fish and macroinvertebrate assemblage richness in the Brazilian Cerrado biome. We analyzed our data through use of multiple linear regression (MLR) models using the three classes of predictor variables alone and in combination. The four MLR models explained dissimilar amounts of benthic macroinvertebrate taxa richness (geophysical landscape R 2 ≈ 35 %, land use and cover R 2 ≈ 28 %, site habitat R 2 ≈ 36 %, and combined R 2 ≈ 51 %). For fish assemblages, geophysical landscape, land use and cover, site habitat, and combined models explained R 2 ≈ 28 %, R 2 ≈ 10 %, R 2 ≈ 31 %, and R 2 ≈ 47 % of the variability in fish species richness, respectively. We conclude that (1) environmental variables differed in the degree to which they explain assemblage richness, (2) the amounts of variance in assemblage richness explained by geophysical landscape and site habitat were similar, (3) the variables explained more variability in macroinvertebrate taxa richness than in fish species richness, and (4) all three classes of environmental variables studied were useful for explaining assemblage richness in Cerrado headwater streams. These results help us to understand the drivers of assemblage patterns at regional scales in tropical areas.