Can the riverside vegetation cushion the effects of contamination on fish?

A study published in the Water Research magazine analyzes the changes in the composition of the river fish communities based on the quality of the riverside vegetation. The work has been led by the professors of the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, and researchers from the Institute for Research in Biodiversity (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona, ​​Drs Alberto Maceda-Veiga and Adolfo de Sostoa and in the Professor Ralph Mac Nally has also collaborated with the University of Canberra, Australia.

River vegetation contributes many benefits to river ecosystems and fish, including direct food inputs or structures used by organisms as a shelter (eg roots, logs) and regulation of the microclimate. Despite this, this study found little evidence that these effects are very apparent on a large scale after studying fish communities with more than 500 sampling points in rivers throughout the northeast of the peninsula, probably due to the degree of degradation of the shores. However, a certain capacity of plant communities was observed to modulate the response of fish to pollution, which opens the door to using riverbank management as a way to cushion the effects of pollution in rivers with little power of dilution like the Mediterranean rivers. A role that does not seem to be related to the type of vegetation, since differences were not observed according to it is forest or rods of arvenses plants.

Article reference:

Maceda-Veiga, A., Mac Nally, R. & de Sostoa, A. (2018) Water-quality impacts in semi-arid regions: can natural 'green filters' mitigate adverse effects on fish assemblages? Water Research 144: 628-641 [PDF].
Source: https://www.ub.edu/portal/web/dp-beeca/detall-novetats/-/detall/pot-la-vegetacio-de-ribera-esmorteir-els-efectes-de-la-contaminacio-sobre-els-peixos-