Effect of Small Hydroelectric Power Plants (SHPPs) and Hydroelectric Power Plants (HPP) in Atlantic Forest Streams Fish Communities

Abstract

Despite SHPPs are considered a clean energy generation alternative, our knowledge of long-term impact in water biological communities is scarce. Some studies indicated that the presence of SHPP is related to changes in the structure of streams fish communities. The Ribeira de Iguape River Basin has interesting environmental characteristics for studies about the watercourse fragmentation and the streams fish communities. The knowledge of the variables that are related with the biological communities similarity/dissimilarity can be useful in the biological conservation decision making. Because the communities similarity/dissimilarity is a multivariate question, this community structure can be partitioned into three components: beta diversity, nesting and concordance in species richness. The objective is to verify if there is an effect of the presence of SHPP/HPPs in the structure of the streams fish communities. The study will be carried out in 17 micro-basins in the Ribeira de Iguape River Basin. The fish collections will be carried out by the electrofishing during the dry period. Specimens of streams will be sampled in the headwaters of the micro-basins considering the local and around physical structure and the position in the dendritic network of the streams. The streams are in micro-basins that have SHPP/HPPs and do not have. It is expected that headwater fish communities that are not suffering from the watercourse fragmentation effect will exhibit greater beta diversity, species substitution, and differences in species richness, whereas communities in the sub-basins with SHPP/HPP will have greater similarity, nesting and agreement in the species richness. (AU)