2026/01/01 by Diana Rojo, Alberto Alonso, Javier Pérez +5 · 1 voice
Environmental Science · #Freshwater macroinvertebrate diversity and ecology #Hydrology and Sediment Transport Processes #Soil and Water Nutrient Dynamics
paper · doi:10.1111/fwb.70163
openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/01/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
ABSTRACT We evaluated whether riparian forest restoration could mitigate the impacts of agricultural land use on key stream ecosystem processes (total and microbial leaf litter decomposition and periphytic algal biomass accrual) and associated assemblages (invertebrates, aquatic hyphomycetes, and periphytic algae) in three streams located in northern Spain. At each stream we studied three sites with different levels of impact: a control site (no impact), an altered site (surrounded by agricultural crops with no riparian vegetation), and a restored site (also located in agricultural land but having riparian vegetation because of restoration). Compared to altered sites, restored sites showed lower nutrient levels and distinct biological assemblages, with taxa more typical of good environmental conditions. Despite large differences among streams in terms of local environmental conditions (e.g., stream intermittency), there was an overall trend for faster leaf litter decomposition at restored compared to altered sites, and the former showed the highest rates of aquatic hyphomycete sporulation and periphyton accrual. Our results suggested an improvement of stream ecological condition due to riparian restoration, for several reasons: water quality was partly improved; leaf litter inputs allowed invertebrate and aquatic hyphomycete assemblages to be more similar to those of control sites, and greater rates of leaf litter decomposition; and algal assemblages were not negatively affected, which maintained the stream self‐purification capacity. Restoration of the riparian forest could be an effective management strategy for improving the ecological condition of streams impacted by agricultural activities, although effects are context‐dependent and influenced by site‐specific factors, which suggests that proper planning and monitoring are needed in each case.