Macroinvertebrados bentônicos como bioindicadores da qualidade de água em um açude urbano no Recôncavo Baiano

Abstract

Aquatic ecosystems over the past decades have been constantly degraded as a result of population growth and the rise of anthropogenic activities. Currently it has become a growing need to monitor and manage appropriately these ecosystems. Aiming to monitor and assess the health of aquatic ecosystems have been proposed and implemented different methodologies for assessing ecological integrity. An important tool used is the biomonitoring that is the use of bodies to assess the changes in the environment. The bioidicadores bodies should be easy to identify, have well-defined taxonomy, presenting broad geographic and low mobility distribution. The fish fauna, the periphyton and benthic macroinvertebrates are important bio-indicators. The wide use of this community as bioindicators due to the characteristics, such as sedentary lifestyle, lifecycles relatively short, reflecting faster environmental changes through the changes in the structure of populations and communities; high biological diversity; and easy sampling. In Brazil, the biological index most widely used in biomonitoring of aquatic ecosystems is BMWP (Biological Monitoring Working Party). This index was developed by the UK Department of Environment, in 1976 to be used in biological classification of water quality. Its wide use is attributed to the fact that this requires an identification of bodies only to the family level is therefore more suitable for the evaluation of Brazilian ecosystems due to lack of taxonomic keys and specific taxonomists. Therefore, this study aims to contribute information on the benthic fauna and its use as a bio-indicator of an urban pond water quality in Cruz das Almas. This monograph is divided into two parts: a literature review and a scientific article presenting the results of this study.