Ecological attributes of the benthic community and indices of water quality in urban, rural and preserved environments Atributos ecológicos da comunidade bent nica e índices de qualidade da água de ambientes urbanos, rurais e preservados

INTRODUCTION: Reference streams are pristine streams, untouched or unaltered by man, it being possible to use their environmental characteristics as quality threshold values. Besides the organic impacts measured via water quality biological monitoring programs, it has become necessary to evaluate the relationship between alterations in the landscape of streams and surrounding areas and changes in the structure of the macroinvertebrate community; AIM: The objective of the present study was to correlate the changes in the landscape with the ecological attributes of the community and indices of water quality, and to recommend reference condition values for the integrity of streams in the region of Jundiai (SP); METHODS: The benthic fauna were sampled in three urban streams, three rural streams and three preserved streams during July 2010, using a Surber-type sampler. The characteristics of the landscape were evaluated by means of Diversity of Habitat; the community, analyzed for several biodiversity indices, and; the water quality assessed using the indices River-BCI, BMWP-CETEC (CETEC - Science and Technology Center), ASPT and SOMI (SOMI - Serra dos órg os Multimetric Index (Serra dos órg os is a mountain range national park in the state of Rio de Janeiro)); RESULTS: The structure and the composition of the communities varied according to the stream and this was reflected in the values of the biological and environmental quality indices. The best conditions were found in preserved streams, intermediate streams and rural streams while the worst conditions were found in the urban streams. The significant Pearson correlations (r > 0.73 and P < 0.05) between the diversity of habitat index and the ecological and water quality index attributes in the streams of Jundiai demonstrated that diversity of habitat may be a good predictor of the environmental characteristics evaluated. INTRODU O: Riachos de referência dizem respeito a ambientes íntegros, sendo possível utilizar suas características ambientais como valores patamares de qualidade. Além dos impactos organicos medidos pelos programas de biomonitoramento da qualidade da água, se faz necessário avaliar as rela es entre as altera es da paisagem dos riachos e de seu entorno com as mudan as na estrutura da comunidade de macroinvertebrados desses ambientes; OBJETIVOS: O presente estudo teve como objetivos correlacionar as mudan as da paisagem com os atributos ecológicos da comunidade e índices de qualidade da água e, recomendar valores de condi o referencial de integridade de riachos para a regi o de Jundiaí/