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Seasonality and composition of benthic coarse particulate organic matter in two coastal tropical streams with different land uses

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Abstract

This work studies benthic CPOM in two streams of Ecuador: the Atacames stream, located in a developed watershed, and the Súa stream, located in a rural watershed and used as a reference. It is tested whether the amount, composition and timing of benthic CPOM will differ between them as a function of watershed and riparian land uses. Benthic CPOM was collected at five study sites on each stream with a Surber net and classified into four categories: leaves, twigs and bark, flowers and fruits and debris. Leaves were further identified to genus or species. There were no significant differences in the amount, composition and timing of benthic CPOM between the streams. CPOM storage showed strong seasonality linked to seasonal rainfall and a weak relation with land uses, channel width and stream order. Diversity of the benthic CPOM was high and 30 species contributed to the benthic leaf pool. Presence or absence of Ficus species with heavy leaves that are easily retained in the streambed explained the spatial distribution of benthic CPOM, so spatial differences in the composition of the riparian vegetation in these tropical streams seem to be more important to explain CPOM distribution than in their temperate counterparts.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financed by the 2016 research call of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador Sede Esmeraldas. The author wants to thank N. Jijón and P. Jiménez for their assistance in the field and laboratory work and F. Quiroz for helping with the identification of the morphotypes to genus and species. The Instituto Geográfico Militar of Ecuador (IGM) provided 1:50,000 cartography of the study area. The Instituto Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología (INAMHI) and the Coronel Carlos Concha Torres airport provided meteorological and hydrological data at the city of Esmeraldas. The author also thanks meteorologist E. Bastidas from the Instituto Nacional Oceanográfico de la Armada (INOCAR) for providing data from the meteorological station at Esmeraldas harbor. J. Molinero is a member of the IBEPECOR network (http://www.ibepecor.csic.es/).

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author J. Molinero upon reasonable request.

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This study was funded by the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador Sede Esmeraldas.

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  1. Escuela de Gestión Ambiental, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador Sede Esmeraldas, Espejo y subida a Santa Cruz, 080150, Esmeraldas, Ecuador

    Jon Molinero

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Molinero, J. Seasonality and composition of benthic coarse particulate organic matter in two coastal tropical streams with different land uses. Hydrobiologia 838, 29–43 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-019-03974-8

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