Aquatic habitats, fish and invertebrate assemblages of the Middle Paraná River.

EDMUNDO DRAGO,; EZCURRA DE DRAGO I; OLGA OLIVEROS,; PAIRA, ALDO RAÚL

Amazoniana - Limnologia Et Oecologia Regionalis Systemae Fluminis Amazonas

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE

Lugar: Kiel; Año: 2003 vol. XVII p. 291 - 341

0065-6755

The Paraná River hydrosystem harbors a large and diverse community of freshwater biota. The Middle Paraná River and its main tributary, the Paraguay River, are also an important inland artery for commerce and, up to day, their tloodplain had suffered a moderate human impact, yet. The river-tloodplain system maintains its aquatic habitat heterogeneity and the natural connectivity between lotic and lentic water bodies.The present review focuses on the description of the main lotic and lentic habitats of the Middle Paraná ecosystem as well as their hydrosedimentological relationships throughout the pulsing river regime.Aquatic habitats are classified according to their location at the main channel and within the tloodplain. The hierarchicallfunctiona classification of the tloodplain channels is based on the mean annual discharge and its degree of intermittence. The relationships between river dynamics and the tloodplain lakesevolution as well as the intluence of the autogenic processes on the waterbodies are also described. The conservation of the ecological integrity and the management of aquatic ecosystem of the river requires a thorough understanding of its ecological habitats, the biotic communities, and their interrelationships. This paper examines the present state of our knowledge of the hydromorphological changes in the Middle Paraná aquatic habitats and describes the communities of fishes and benthic macroinvertebrates associatedwith them.