Fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages reveal extensive degradation of the world's rivers.

Rivers suffer from multiple stressors acting simultaneously on their biota, but the consequences are poorly quantified at the global scale. We evaluated the biological condition of rivers globally, including the largest proportion of countries from the Global South published to date. We gathered macroinvertebrate- and fish-based assessments from 72,275 and 37,676 sites, respectively, from 64 study regions across six continents and 45 nations. Because assessments were based on differing methods, different systems were consolidated into a 3-class system: Good, Impaired, or Severely Impaired, following common guidelines. The proportion of sites in each class by study area was calculated and each region was assigned a Köppen-Geiger climate type, Human Footprint score (addressing landscape alterations), Human Development Index (HDI) score (addressing social welfare), % rivers with good ambient water quality, % protected freshwater key biodiversity areas; and % of forest area net change rate. We found that 50% of macroinvertebrate sites and 42% of fish sites were in Good condition, whereas 21% and 29% were Severely Impaired, respectively. The poorest biological conditions occurred in Arid and Equatorial climates and the best conditions occurred in Snow climates. Severely Impaired conditions were associated (Pearson correlation coefficient) with higher HDI scores, poorer physico-chemical water quality, and lower proportions of protected freshwater areas. Good biological conditions were associated with good water quality and increased forested areas. It is essential to implement statutory bioassessment programs in Asian, African, and South American countries, and continue them in Oceania, Europe, and North America. There is a need to invest in assessments based on fish, as there is less information globally and fish were strong indicators of degradation. Our study highlights a need to increase the extent and number of protected river catchments, preserve and restore natural forested areas in the catchments, treat wastewater discharges, and improve river connectivity.

Predicting the ecological impacts of large-dam removals on a river network based on habitat-network structure and flow regimes.

Large dams provide vital protection and services to humans. However, an increasing number of large dams worldwide are old and not operating properly. The removal of large dams has excellent potential to restore habitat connectivity and flow regimes; therefore, projecting the related ecological consequences is an emerging need for water resource and ecosystem management. However, no modeling methods are currently available for such projections at the basin scale. We devised a scheme that integrates changes in flow regimes and habitat network structure into a basin-scale impact assessment of removal of large dams and applied it to the Nagara-Ibi Basin, Japan. We used a graph-theoretical approach and a hydrological model, to quantify changes in habitat availability for 11 freshwater fishes at the basin scale under multiple removal scenarios. We compared these results with the change predicted using a conventional scheme that considered only changes to the habitat network due to dam removal. Our proposed scheme revealed that an increase in flow variability associated with dam removal projected both positive and negative effects on basin-scale habitat availability, depending on the focal species, endangered species had a negative response to dam removal. In contrast, the conventional approach projected only positive effects for all species. This difference in the outcomes indicates that large-dam removal can have negative and positive effects on watershed restoration due to changes in flow regimes. Our results also suggest the effect of removal of large dams may depend on the dams and their locations. Our study is the first step in projecting ecological trade-offs associated with the removal of large dams on riverscapes at the basin scale and provides a foundation for future process-based watershed restoration.

Flood disturbance and predator-prey effects on regional gradients in species diversity.

The effects of both abiotic factors and biotic interactions among guilds (i.e., inter-guild effects) have been suggested to be important for understanding spatial variation in species diversity; however, compared to the abiotic effects, the processes by which the inter-guild effects are mediated have been little described. Hence, we investigated stream invertebrate assemblages on Hokkaido Island, Japan, and assessed how the processes of determining regional patterns in species diversity differed among guilds (collector-filterers, collector-gatherers/shredders, scrapers, and predators) by taking both inter-guild and abiotic effects into consideration using Bayesian networks. Collector-gatherers/shredders, collector-filterers, and predators exhibited significant regional gradients in taxonomic richness. Gradients in the former two guilds can be generated by variation in flood disturbance regardless of interactions with other guilds. The gradient in predator taxonomic richness was indirectly related to the disturbance and was directly generated by bottom-up effects through their prey (collector-gatherers/shredders and collector-filterers). We found that not only environmental factors, but also inter-guild effects may be essential for forming the regional gradient in predators, unlike those for collector-gatherers/shredders and collector-filterers. The processes underlying the regional variation in taxonomic richness of the three guilds are interpreted in terms of the "more individuals" hypothesis, facilitation, and predator-prey relationships.