Hydrology and water quality factors driving spatiotemporal analyses of zoobenthos in a pilot city in China

In water ecosystems, zoobenthos are one of the most important communities. Maintenance of healthy zoobenthos community is essential for water ecosystems remediation. Understanding the hydrology and water quality factors that drive the variation of zoobenthos is the priority for water ecosystems remediation. The present study used canonical correlation analysis to select the main habitat factors affecting zoobenthic communities based on field sampling of the river zoobenthos in the first pilot city for the construction of civilized water ecosystems in China—Jinan City. In addition, analysis was performed based on geoscience methods of Global Moran's I and Anselin local Moran's I spatial autocorrelation of main habitats factors. The results show that the key water quality physical factors affecting Jinan City zoobenthic communities were pH and conductivity; the key water quality chemical factors were K+, Na+, and permanganate index; and the key hydrological factor was water depth. The sodium ions and conductivity exhibited significant spatial autocorrelation in all seasons. And the regions exhibiting spatial autocorrelation were generally stable. Moreover, the characteristics of benthic animals are closely related to human activities of domestic sewage discharge in the central and agricultural activities in northern parts of the study area. All methods in this paper can be extended to the researches on other communities, for example, algae, zooplankton, and fish in water ecosystems. The methods and results in the paper can provide significant references for managers to protect and restore degraded water ecosystems in global water.