July 1, 2021

The most recently published paper under the RIVEAL project entitled “Influence of river regulation and instream habitat on invertebrate assemblage’ structure and function” was published in the reputable scientific journal Science of the Total Environment (STOTEN). This study investigates the structural and functional macroinvertebrate community alterations in different instream mesohabitats of two Portuguese rivers impaired by dams. In this work, the authors found distinct taxonomic structure and trait composition of macroinvertebrate assemblages between regulated and unregulated flow sites, and between mesohabitats, in which the differences were more evident. Furthermore, the effect of flow regulation was detected only in run-type mesohabitats for both taxonomic and trait composition, providing evidence for a methodology and accuracy improvement regarding the ecological quality assessment in rivers impacted by dams, benefiting from a sampling approach focused on run mesohabitats and the detection of some key traits. Download the paper here.