Environmental filtering of native and non-native stream macrophyte assemblages by habitat disturbances in an agricultural landscape

Understanding how inter-specific variation in functional traits affects native and non-native species responses to stream disturbances, is necessary to inform management strategies, providing tools for biomonitoring, conservation and restoration. This study used a functional trait approach to characterise the responses of macrophyte assemblages to reach-scale disturbances (measured by lack of riparian shading, altered hydromorphology and eutrophication), from 97 wadeable stream sites in an agriculturally impacted region of New Zealand. To determine whether macrophyte assemblages differed due to disturbances, we examined multidimensional assemblage functional structure in relation to eleven functional traits and further related two functional diversity indices (entropy and originality) to disturbances.