O uso de Macroinvertebrados Bentônicos como bioindicadores da qualidade das águas de uma lagoa artificial em parque urbano: uma ferramenta para a gestão de recursos hídricos

Abstract

Urban parks are important areas for conservation of the natural elements - flora, fauna, water resources - and social life. However, the impacts of urbanization have not allowed these places to meet, in full, its role in preserving ecosystems. Several organisms or groups of organisms have been proposed and used as biological indicators of water quality, despite of the difficulties to define / characterize a good biological indicator of water quality. Among the groups that are often suggested for monitoring water quality, benthic macroinvertebrates have been used often. They are organisms that inhabit the bottom of aquatic ecosystems during at least part of their life cycle, associated with various types of substrates, both organic (litter, aquatic macrophytes) and inorganic (gravel, sand, rocks, etc.). In this study, it evaluated the quality of water in Lagoa do Nado, a shallow small artificial reservoir located in a Conservation Unit (UC) in the northern region of Belo Horizonte (city park), using benthic macroinvertebrates as bioindicators. At a gathering held at six points of the Lagoa do Nado, indicator organisms impacted environments were predominants such as Chironomidae (42%), Hirudinea (16%), Biomphalaria sp. (8%), Melanoides sp. (8%) and Oligochaeta (8.4%) Among these, mollusc is important group. Besides being indicators of water quality it is often vectors of disease to humans such as schistosomiasis transmitted by Biomphalaria spp. Thus benthic macroinvertebrates can be considerate as a tool for the management of water resources and as an orientation for public policies related to waterborne diseases.