AccScience Publishing / AJWEP / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/AJWEP026090050
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Spatiotemporal dynamics of benthic macrofaunal assemblages and environmental drivers in the Nan’ou River Basin, China

Aimin Hao1† ,  Xin Liu2,3,4†* ,  Kai Chen1 ,  Qiang Huang2,3,4 ,  Yuening Luo5 ,  Yasushi Iseri1,6 ,  Sohei Kobayashi7 ,  Tetsuya Sumi7 ,  Tomokazu Haraguchi8*
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1 College of Life and Environmental Science, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, China
2 Guangxi Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Guangxi Academy of Marine Sciences, Guangxi Academy of Sciences, Nanning, Guangxi, China
3 Beibu Gulf Marine Industry Research Institute, Fangchenggang, Guangxi, China
4 Guangxi Laboratory of Oceanography, Nanning, Guangxi, China
5 Guangxi Key Laboratory of Marine Natural Products and Combinatorial Biosynthesis Chemistry, Guangxi Academy of Marine Sciences, Guangxi Academy of Sciences, Nanning, Guangxi, China
6 National and Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Ecological Treatment Technology of Urban Water Pollution, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, China
7 Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
8 Faculty of Agriculture, Saga University, Saga, Japan
†These authors contributed equally to this work.
AJWEP, 026090050 https://doi.org/10.36922/AJWEP026090050
Received: 27 February 2026 | Revised: 28 March 2026 | Accepted: 1 April 2026 | Published online: 3 June 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Macrobenthos, which are critical for ecological health through nutrient cycling, water quality maintenance, and food web dynamics, inhabit the bottoms of freshwater basins. This study investigated spatiotemporal dynamics of macrobenthos communities in the Nan’ou River Basin, covering the Nanxijiang and Oujiang Rivers in China, from 2021 to 2023, to assess river ecological health and resilience. A total of seven phyla, 12 classes, and 32 families of benthic macroinvertebrates were identified, with Arthropoda, Annelida, and Mollusca collectively dominating (97.38% of benthic composition), forming a typical riverine assemblage. Key findings revealed that spatial environmental gradients, particularly habitat heterogeneity (the gravel bed of the Nanxijiang River versus the tidal regions of both the Nanxijiang and Oujiang Rivers), exerted far stronger influence on community structure and biodiversity distribution than seasonal variation. Pielou’s evenness index remained relatively high despite fluctuating species richness, indicating a comparatively balanced and equitable community. Redundancy analysis identified total nitrogen, electrical conductivity, and turbidity as the primary drivers shaping benthic distribution, highlighting the significant roles of nutrient enrichment and sediment conditions, largely linked to anthropogenic pressures. These results highlight that habitat-specific conditions and anthropogenic factors predominantly shape benthic biodiversity in this basin, providing a critical scientific baseline for understanding its ecological dynamics and underscoring the need for further investigation into sources of organic pollution through monitoring of bioaccumulation in benthic organisms and trophic transfer in food webs.

Graphical abstract
Keywords
Benthic invertebrate
Community structure
Seasonal variation
Environmental factors
River
Funding
This study was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (grant number: 2025GXNSFAA069312) and the Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University (grant number: 2021W-01).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution, Electronic ISSN: 1875-8568 Print ISSN: 0972-9860, Published by AccScience Publishing
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