Compliance of secondary production and eco-exergy as indicators of benthic macroinvertebrates assemblages' response to canopy cover conditions in Neotropical headwater streams Marden Seabra Linares a, ⁎ ,1 , Marcos Callisto a,1 , João Carlos Marques b a Laboratório de Ecologia de Bentos, Departamento de Biologia Geral, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Av. Antônio Carlos, 6627, CP 486, CEP31270-901, Belo Horizonte, Brazil b MARE-Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, DCV, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Coimbra, Portugal HIGHLIGHTS • Benthic macroinvertebrate assem- blages’ diversity is not affected by canopy cover. • Benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages to build a more complex structure in open canopy streams. • Autochthonous production is the main energy source in Neotropical headwater streams. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT abstract article info Article history: Received 10 May 2017 Received in revised form 26 August 2017 Accepted 28 August 2017 Available online xxxx Editor: D. Barcelo Riparian vegetation cover influences benthic assemblages structure and functioning in headwater streams, as it regulates light availability and autochthonous primary production in these ecosystems.Secondary production, di- versity, and exergy-based indicators were applied in capturing how riparian cover influences the structure and functioning of benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in tropical headwater streams. Four hypotheses were test- ed: (1) open canopy will determine the occurrence of higher diversity in benthic macroinvertebrate assem- blages; (2) streams with open canopy will exhibit more complex benthic macroinvertebrate communities (in terms of information embedded in the organisms' biomass); (3) in streams with open canopy benthic macroin- vertebrate assemblages will be more efficient in using the available resources to build structure, which will be reflected by higher eco-exergy values; (4) benthic assemblages in streams with open canopy will exhibit more secondary productivity. We selected eight non-impacted headwater streams, four shaded and four with open canopy, all located in the Neotropical savannah (Cerrado) of southeastern Brazil. Open canopy streams consis- tently exhibited significantly higher eco-exergy and instant secondary production values, exemplifying that these streams may support more complex and productive benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages. Nevertheless, diversity indices and specific eco-exergy were not significantly different in shaded and open canopy streams. Since all the studied streams were selected for being considered as non-impacted, this suggests that the potential represented by more available food resources was not used to build a more complex dissipative structure. These Keywords: Diversity Exergy based indicators Headwater streams Instant secondary production Neotropical savannah Science of the Total Environment xxx (2017) xxx–xxx ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: mslinares@ufmg.br (M.S. Linares). 1 http://lebufmg.wixsite.com/bentos. STOTEN-23846; No of Pages 8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.08.282 0048-9697/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Science of the Total Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv Please cite this article as: Linares, M.S., et al., Compliance of secondary production and eco-exergy as indicators of benthic macroinvertebrates assemblages' response to canopy cove..., Sci Total Environ (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.08.282