The Haraz River is one of the most important rivers in the Caspian Sea basin. In order to investigate changes in the taxa abundance composition and feeding groups of the benthic macroinvertebrates, twelve-time sampling was carried out at nine stations along three different sites: (1) before, (2) into, and (3) after Amol City. Results showed impacts of anthropogenic activities caused by the urbanization and development on the occurrence of benthic macroinvertebrates taxa. Families, Hydropsychidae and Heptageniidae at site 1 and Tipulidae at sites 2 and 3, were significantly dominant. The feeding groups of gathering collectors and predators increased from site 1 to site 3, while the filtering collectors and scrapers decreased. Consequently, our data supported the use of the bioindicator concept for Haraz River. Some sensitive (Hydropsychidae, Heptageniidae, Baetidae, and Leuctridae) and tolerant families (Tipulidae and Naididae/Tubificidae) are introduced as potential bioindicators of clean and disturbed river’s area, respectively. 1. Introduction The benthic macroinvertebrates have long been used as indicators for biological monitoring programs. They play a key role in freshwater ecosystems in linking decomposers and producers food chains with top predators. They inhabited throughout the length of the river with large number of species, limited mobility, and relatively long lifespan, and so forth [1–6]. These characters offer a spectrum of responses to perturbations and, thus, their relative abundances have been used to make inferences about pollution loads such as organic pollution and nutrient enrichment [1, 3, 7–9]. The physicochemical analyses of the water quality are capable of detecting disturbance directly and only reflect the water quality at the moment of sampling. In contrast, the biological communities provide more faithful reflection of environmental conditions, since they are continually exposed to pollutants. Therefore, the study of biological communities as a bioindicator can reveal the impacts of intermittent or unrecorded pollution incidents [1–3, 9]. Nonetheless, the use of macrobenthic invertebrates for bioindication purposes seems not to be popular or widespread in the Asian ecoregion. However, this technique provides a cheaper and worth method in river classification, as they are widely used in the Northern American and European ecoregions [8, 9]. In rivers of the southern Caspian Sea basin and especially Haraz River, information on the spatiotemporal variations in abundance composition of benthic communities is still extremely poor.
References
[1]
J. M. Hellawell, Biological Indicators of Freshwater Pollution and Environmental Management, Elsevier Applied Science, London, UK, 1986.
[2]
J. L. Metcalfe, “Biological water quality assessment of running waters based on macroinvertebrate communities: history and present status in Europe,” Environmental Pollution, vol. 60, no. 1-2, pp. 101–139, 1989.
[3]
D. M. Rosenberg and V. H. Resh, Freshwater Biomonitoring and Benthic Macroinvertebrates, Chapman and Hall, New York, NY, USA, 1993.
[4]
J. A. Camargo, A. Alonso, and M. De La Puente, “Multimetric assessment of nutrient enrichment in impounded rivers based on benthic macroinvertebrates,” Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, vol. 96, no. 1-3, pp. 233–249, 2004.
[5]
D. A. dos Santos, C. Molineri, M. C. Reynaga, and C. Basualdo, “Which index is the best to assess stream health?” Ecological Indicators, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 582–589, 2011.
[6]
J. A. Camargo, C. Gonzalo, and á. Alonso, “Assessing trout farm pollution by biological metrics and indices based on aquatic macrophytes and benthic macroinvertebrates: a case study,” Ecological Indicators, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 911–917, 2011.
[7]
M. T. Barbour, J. Gerritsen, B. D. Snyder, and J. B. Stribling, Rapid Bioassessment Protocols for Use in Streams and Wadeable Rivers: Periphyton, Benthic Macroinvertebrates and Fish, Office of Water, US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, USA, 2nd edition, 1999.
[8]
M. Z. Azrina, C. K. Yap, A. Rahim Ismail, A. Ismail, and S. G. Tan, “Anthropogenic impacts on the distribution and biodiversity of benthic macroinvertebrates and water quality of the Langat River, Peninsular Malaysia,” Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, vol. 64, no. 3, pp. 337–347, 2006.
[9]
M. N. Varnosfaderany, E. Ebrahimi, N. Mirghaffary, and A. Safyanian, “Biological assessment of the Zayandeh Rud River, Iran, using benthic macroinvertebrates,” Limnologica, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 226–232, 2010.
[10]
T. Nasrabadi, G. Nabi Bidhendi, A. Karbassi, and N. Mehrdadi, “Evaluating the efficiency of sediment metal pollution indices in interpreting the pollution of Haraz River sediments, southern Caspian Sea basin,” Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, vol. 171, no. 1–4, pp. 395–410, 2010.
[11]
APHA, Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Waste Water, American Public Health Association, Washington, DC, USA, 1992.
[12]
R. W. Merritt and K. W. Cummins, An Introduction to the Aquatic Insects of North America, Kendall/Hunt, Ames, Iowa, USA, 1978.
[13]
A. H. Pejman, G. R. Nabi Bidhendi, A. R. Karbassi, N. Mehrdadi, and M. Esmaeili Bidhendi, “Evaluation of spatial and seasonal variations in surface water quality using multivariate statistical techniques,” International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 467–476, 2009.
[14]
K. Nasirahmadi, Z. Yousefi, and A. Tarassoli, “Zoning of water quality on Haraz river bases on national sanitation foundation water quality index,” Journal of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, vol. 22, no. 92, pp. 64–71, 2012 (Persian).
[15]
L. K. Khajuie, A. E. Sari, and S. M. Ghasempouri, “Assessment of Haraz River pollution from a rainbow trout farm,” Iranian Journal of Marine Sciences, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 27–34, 2002 (Persian).
[16]
M. Naderi Jolodar, A. Esmaeili Sari, M. R. Ahmadi, S. J. Seyfabadi, and A. Abdoli, “The effects of Trout farm effluents on the water quality parameters of Haraz river,” Environmental Science, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 21–36, 2007 (Persian).
[17]
A. K. Amirkolaie, “Environmental impact of nutrient discharged by aquaculture waste water on the Haraz River,” Journal of Fisheries & Aquatic Science, vol. 3, no. 5, pp. 275–279, 2008.
[18]
I. Czerniawska-Kusza, “Comparing modified biological monitoring working party score system and several biological indices based on macroinvertebrates for water-quality assessment,” Limnologica, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 169–176, 2005.
[19]
C. Lindegaard and K. P. Brodersen, “Distribution of Chironomidae (Diptera) in the river continuum,” in Chironomids: From Genes to Ecosystems, P. Cranston, Ed., pp. 257–271, CSIRO, East Melbourne, Australia, 1994.
[20]
L. S. Fore, J. R. Karr, and R. W. Wisseman, “Assessing invertebrate responses to human activities: evaluating alternative approaches,” Journal of the North American Benthological Society, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 212–231, 1996.
[21]
G. Cognetti and F. Maltagliati, “Biodiversity and adaptive mechanisms in brackish water fauna,” Marine Pollution Bulletin, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 7–14, 2000.
[22]
A. M. Pires, I. G. Cowx, and M. M. Coelho, “Benthic macroinvertebrate communities of intermittent streams in the middle reaches of the Guadiana Basin (Portugal),” Hydrobiologia, vol. 435, pp. 167–175, 2000.
[23]
M. Kamali and A. E. Sari, “Bioassessment of Lasem River (Amol, Mazandaran Prov.) using macroinvertebrates community of structure,” Journal of Biology Science, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 51–61, 2009 (Persian).
[24]
M. Naderi Jolodar, A. Abdoli, M. K. Mirzakhani, and R. Sharifi Jolodar, “Benthic macroinvertebrates response in the Haraz River to the trout farms effluent,” Iranian Journal of Natural Resources, vol. 64, no. 2, pp. 163–175, 2011 (Persian).
[25]
R. O. Brinkhurst and C. R. Kennedy, “Studies on the biology of the tubificidae (Annelida, Oligochaeta) in a polluted stream,” Journal of the Animal Ecology, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 429–443, 1965.
[26]
R. O. Brinkhurst, “The distribution of aquatic oligochaetes in Saginaw Bay, Lake Huron,” Limnology and Oceanography, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 137–143, 1967.
[27]
M. T. Barbour, J. Gerritsen, G. E. Griffith et al., “A framework for biological criteria for Florida streams using benthic macroinvertebrates,” Journal of the North American Benthological Society, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 185–211, 1996.
[28]
E. Dumnicka, “Upper Vistula River: response of aquatic communities to pollution and impoundment. X. Oligochaete taxocens,” Polish Journal of Ecology, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 237–247, 2002.
[29]
M. Sharifinia, J. Imanpour, and A. Bozorgi, “Ecological assessment of the Tajan River using feeding groups of benthic macroinvertebrates and biotic indices,” Iranian Journal of Applied Ecology, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 80–95, 2012.
[30]
R. L. Vannote, G. W. Minshall, K. W. Cummins, J. R. Sedell, and C. E. Cushing, “The river continuum concept,” Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 130–137, 1980.
[31]
J. B. Wallace, J. R. Webster, and W. R. Woodall, “The role of filter feeders in flowing waters,” Archiv für Hydrobiologie, vol. 79, pp. 506–532, 1977.
