Índice multimétrico de qualidade de água de áreas úmidas baseado em populações de macrófitas aquáticas

Abstract

Biomonitoring is defined as the use of organisms’ answer to evaluate ecosystems modifications. In aquatic ecosystems, this is an important technique to detect pollution and impacts, with low costs. Aquatic ecosystems undergo many kinds of perturbation and it is necessary to quantify them in order to establish conservation programs for these areas. Biotic indexes show the integrity of aquatic ecosystems through the aquatic organisms, in his study the organisms used as models were the aquatic macrophytes. Therefore, the study aims at: 1. To identify the environmental impact level of the wetlands through water physicochemical analysis, land use alteration, habitat degradation and hydrological changes; 2. To compare composition and richness of aquatic macrophytes between reference and impacted wetlands. To identify potential metrics (general aspects of community, functional traits, diversity, dominance, specific species defined by abundance and richness) based on aquatic macrophytes community. 4. To select metrics which give better answers to the water quality gradient of variation in wetlands with different levels of anthropic impact and, 5. To develop a multimetric index of water quality, based on aquatic macrophytes community. A total of 10 wetlands were selected in the low patch of Rio dos Sinos’ River Basin, the selected areas were distributed in different levels of water quality. The aquatic macrophytes were collected in March and November of 2015. Fifty nine species of aquatic macrophytes were identified, totalizing 20 botanical families. Initially, the index was composed by 45 metrics and finished with fivemetrics of: abundance, composition, specific species and richness. The information generated through this study are important to create management and conservation proposals to preserve the southern Brazilian wetlands.