Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Assemblages are Affected by Insecticide Applications on the Argentine Pampas.

SOLIS, M;; C. BONETTO; MARROCHI, N; PARACAMPO, A.; MUGNI, H.

ECOTOXICOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY

ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2018 vol. 148 p. 11 - 16

0147-6513

Agriculture intensification in Argentina has increased agrochemicals consumption in the last decades and mightrepresent an environmental risk for adjacent water bodies. The objective of the present work was to assess the effect of land use on water quality and invertebrate assemblages in the Argentine Pampas streams. Eight streams were sampled on 4 occasions during the 2013/14 growing season. Three streams are located within a biosphere reserve, two drain basins with extensive livestock fields, and three run through intensively cultivated plots; one of them contained a 30 m wide uncultivated grass-covered strip between the crop and the stream.Macroinvertebrates were sampled from emergent vegetation by means of a D-net with a 500 μm pore size, and 30 cm diameter.Higher nutrient concentrations were measured in the agricultural streams. Endosulfan was measured in sedimentsof the agricultural streams, concentrations being significantly lower in the stream with the buffer strip.Invertebrate assemblages in the cropped streams were significantly different from those in the livestock and reserve streams, those in the latter not being different from each other. Ampullaridae (Pomacea canaliculata) andPlanorbidae (Biomophalaria peregrina) were the taxa best represented in the agricultural streams. Hyalellidae (Hyalella curvispina), Zygoptera and Planorbidae (B. peregrina) were the taxa best represented in the reserve andlivestock streams. Present evidence suggests that the observed differences in the invertebrate composition in the agricultural streams were related with the impact of agrochemicals and that buffer strips represent a usefulattenuation practice. Cattle breeding on natural pastures represented a land use with low impact on the invertebrate assemblages.