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Multimetric indices (MMIs) have been successfully used to assess ecological conditions in freshwater ecosystems worldwide, and provide an important management tool especially in countries where biological indicators are fostered by environmental regulations. Nonetheless, for the neotropics, the few published papers are limited to small local scales and lack standardized sampling protocols. To fill the gaps left by previous studies, we propose a stream MMI that reflects anthropogenic impacts by using macroinvertebrate assemblage metrics from a data set of 190 sites collected from four hydrologic units in the Parana and Sao Francisco River Basins, southeastern Brazil. Sites were selected through use of a probabilistic survey design allowing us to infer ecological condition to the total of 9432 kilometers of wadeable streams in the target population in the four hydrologic units. We used a filtering process to determine the least- and most-disturbed sites based on their water quality, physical habitat structure, and land use. To develop the MMI, we followed a stepwise procedure to screen our initial set of biological metrics for influence of natural variation, responsiveness and discriminance to disturbances, sampling variability, and redundancy. The final MMI is the sum of 7 scaled assemblage metrics describing different aspects of macroinvertebrate assemblage characteristics: Ephemeroptera richness, % Gastropoda individuals, Shannon-Wiener diversity index, % sensitive taxa richness, % scraper individuals, temporarily attached taxa richness, and gill respiration taxa richness. The MMI clearly distinguished the least-disturbed sites from the most-disturbed sites and showed a significant negative response to anthropogenic stressors. Of the total length of wadeable streams in the study area, 38%, 35%, and 27% were classified by the MMI as being in good, fair, and poor condition, respectively. By reducing the subjectivity of site selection, rigorously selecting the set of reference sites, and following a standardized metric screening method, we developed a robust MMI to assess and monitor ecological condition in neotropical savanna streams. This improved MMI provides an effective ecological tool to guide decision makers and managers in developing and implementing improved, cost-effective environmental policies, regulations, and monitoring of those systems.

Assessing the ecological impacts of anthropogenic pressures is a key task in environmental management. Multimetric indices (MMIs), based on aquatic assemblage responses to anthropogenic pressures, have been used increasingly throughout the world. The MMI approach is a low-cost, rapid field method that produces an aquatic condition index that responds precisely to anthropogenic pressures, making it useful for conservation and environmental management. We developed four candidate MMIs based on benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages sampled at 40 randomly selected sites to assess the environmental condition of streams upstream of a hydroelectric power plant in the Brazilian Neotropical Savanna biome. Those MMIs were built from landscape-adjusted and unadjusted biological metrics as well as two alternative ways of choosing metrics. The alternative MMIs performances were tested by comparing their precision to distinguish least-disturbed areas, responsiveness to discriminate least- and most-disturbed areas, and sensitivity to anthropogenic pressures at catchment and local scales. The best performing MMI had landscape-adjusted metrics and was produced through use of principal component analysis for metric selection. It included 4 metrics: Ephemeroptera richness, average tolerance score per taxon, percentage of predator individuals, and percentage of Odonata individuals adjusted by elevation. This index discriminated well the anthropogenic pressures at local- and catchment-scales, and at both scales simultaneously, as indicated by an integrated disturbance index. Our methodological development included statistical criteria for identifying least- and most-disturbed sites, calibrating for natural landscape variability, and use of non-redundant metrics. Therefore, we expect it will provide a model for environmental assessment of water resources elsewhere in Brazil and in other nations.

Freshwater ecosystems are among the most threatened by human activities, influencing losses of biodiversity. To efficiently address management practices to conserve and restore those ecosystems it is important to correctly identify and quantify the severity and magnitude of anthropogenic stressors degrading freshwater biota. In this study we assessed seven stressors describing poor water quality, physical habitat alteration, and land use by means of the relative risk (RR) and relative extent (RE) approach. The RR measures the co-occurrence probability of high stressor condition and poor biological condition. The RE measures the proportion of stream length in the region in high stressor condition. To obtain accurate estimations of RR and RE we used a probabilistic survey design to select a representative sample of perennial, wadeable and accessible streams within four hydrologic units in the neotropical savanna. Results were evaluated at two spatial scales: local – within each of the four hydrologic units, and regional – all four units combined. From 143 randomly selected sites we inferred our results to a target population of 9466 km of streams. Regionally, we found turbidity, % fine sediments and % agriculture as key stressors associated with poor biological condition. At the local scale, we also found that % pasture and total nitrogen were key stressors of biological condition, but their extent was relatively small. By evaluating both RR and RE we conclude that reducing excess sedimentation on streambeds should be the most effective means of improving biological condition over the region. That finding should guide decision makers and land managers to better focus their efforts and resources on improving biological condition of savanna streams.

Taxonomic richness is one of the most important measures of biological diversity in ecological studies, including those with stream macroinvertebrates. However, it is impractical to measure the true richness of any site directly by sampling. Our objective was to evaluate the effect of sampling effort on estimates of macroinvertebrate family and Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera (EPT) genera richness at two scales: basin and stream site. In addition, we tried to determine which environmental factors at the site scale most influenced the amount of sampling effort needed. We sampled 39 sites in the Cerrado biome (neotropical savanna). In each site, we obtained 11 equidistant samples of the benthic assemblage and multiple physical habitat measurements. The observed basin-scale richness achieved a consistent estimation from Chao 1, Jack 1, and Jack 2 richness estimators. However, at the site scale, there was a constant increase in the observed number of taxa with increased number of samples. Models that best explained the slope of site-scale sampling curves (representing the necessity of greater sampling effort) included metrics that describe habitat heterogeneity, habitat structure, anthropogenic disturbance, and water quality, for both macroinvertebrate family and EPT genera richness. Our results demonstrate the importance of considering basin- and site-scale sampling effort in ecological surveys and that taxa accumulation curves and richness estimators are good tools for assessing sampling efficiency. The physical habitat explained a significant amount of the sampling effort needed. Therefore, future studies should explore the possible implications of physical habitat characteristics when developing sampling objectives, study designs, and calculating the needed sampling effort.

Mesohabitat components such as substrate and surface flow types are intimately related to benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in streams. Visual as- sessments of the distribution of these components pro- videameansofevaluatingphysicalhabitatheterogeneity and aid biodiversity surveys and monitoring. We deter- mined the degree to which stream site and visually assessed mesohabitat variables explain variability (i.e., beta-diversity) in the relative abundance and presence- absence of all macroinvertebrate families and of Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera (EPT) gen- era. We systematically sampled a wide variety of mesohabitat arrangements as they occured in stream sites. We also estimated how much of the explanation given by mesohabitat was associated with substrate or surface flow types. We performed variation partitioning to determine fractions of explained variance through use of partial redundancy analysis (pRDA). Mesohabitats and stream sites explained together from 23 to 32 % of the variation in the four analyses. Stream site explained 8-11 % of that variation, and mesohabitat variables explained 13-20 %. Surface flow types accounted for >60 % of the variation provided by the mesohabitat component. These patterns are in accordance with those obtained in previous studies that showed the predomi- nance of environmental variables over spatial location in explaining macroinvertebrate distribution. We conclude that visually assessed mesohabitat components are im- portant predictors of assemblage composition, explaining significant amounts of beta-diversity. Therefore, they are critical to consider in ecological and biodiversity assessments involving macroinvertebrates.