Assessing alpha and beta diversities of benthic macroinvertebrates and their environmental drivers between watersheds with different levels of habitat transformation in Japan

Little is known about differences in species diversity among ecological communities subject to different levels of human-caused habitat transformation and how this disturbance contributes to diversity through symbiotic dependencies with the environment in freshwater ecosystems. We estimated α and β diversities of benthic macroinvertebrates and relationships between diversity and environmental variables in Ado River (natural) and Yasu River (intermediately disturbed) watersheds, Japan. Alpha diversity was consistently slightly higher in the natural river watershed than in the intermediately disturbed one, but the spatial distribution was not equivalent. The opposite pattern was found for β diversity. Significant differences in environmental variables existed between the two river watersheds, with especially high chlorophyll-a concentrations detected in the intermediately disturbed watershed. Alpha diversity was not correlated with specific environmental variables, whereas water temperature and chlorophyll-a concentrations were the two most significant environmental variables influencing β diversity across sites in the two watersheds. These results suggest that diversity patterns in freshwater benthic macroinvertebrates are differentially influenced by levels of human-caused habitat transformation, especially that intermediately disturbed habitats may benefit species turnover, and further understanding how they relate to environmental variables is essential for protecting local to regional diversity and can provide useful information for conservation planning to maximise biodiversity at the watershed scale. © 2019 CSIRO.