Analysing the contribution of intermittent rivers to beta diversity can improve freshwater conservation in Mediterranean rivers

In Mediterranean climate regions, intermittent rivers (IRs) harbor highly dynamic communities with species and trait composition changing over time and space. Simultaneously considering multiple biodiversity facets and a spatiotemporal perspective is, therefore, key to developing effective conservation strategies for these ecosystems. We studied the spatiotemporal dynamics of aquatic macroinvertebrates in rivers of the western Mediterranean Basin by analysing (1) the taxonomic and functional richness and the local contribution to beta diversity (LCBD; measured considering taxonomic and functional facets) of perennial rivers and IRs over five sampling times, and (2) their relation with flow intermittence, local environmental uniqueness, and the number of anthropogenic impacts. Both analyses were also conducted for the subset of data including only IRs to compare values between their flowing and disconnected pool phases. According to our results, taxonomic and functional richness tended to be higher in perennial rivers than in IRs, while taxonomic and functional LCBD tended to be higher in IRs than in perennial rivers. When comparing IR sites over time, higher values of taxonomic and functional LCBD corresponded mostly to their disconnected pool phase. Flow intermittence, the number of anthropogenic impacts and the environmental uniqueness were significant predictors of taxonomic and functional richness, but only flow intermittence was an important predictor of taxonomic LCBD. For the IR-only data subset, disconnected pool permanence was the main predictor explaining spatiotemporal patterns. Our results highlight the importance of IRs to biodiversity conservation of Mediterranean climate rivers, especially during the disconnected pool phase, suggesting that these ecosystems cannot be ignored in conservation planning strategies.

Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. The study was supported by the LIFE+ TRivers (LIFE13 ENV/ES/000341) project. MS was supported by the Scholarship for studies or projects outside Catalonia funded by “Fundació Universitària Agustí Pedro i Pons” and the Iberoamerican Mobility Scholarship funded by “Banco Santander”. CG-C was supported by a Junior Leader Fellowship contract (LCF/BQ/PR22/11920005) funded by “la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434). PR-L was supported by a Margalida Comas postdoctoral contract (PD/031/2018) funded by the Government of the Balearic Islands and the European Social Fund and by a Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación fellowship (IJC2019-041601-I).

Peer reviewed