Relationship between instream and riparian processes H3 & H4.
Leaf stocks were higher, and C/N, shredder abundances, CK and FK lower, in the riparian than in the instream habitat, respectively (Table S5). Invertebrate richness did not differ between the instream and riparian habitats, except at mainstem, where instream richness was higher than riparian richness (Table S5).
The relationships between riparian and instream responses were relatively weak but selected for most of the response variables, apart from C/N (Table 2 & 3). Although invertebrate community responses were weak, instream invertebrate taxa richness tended to decrease and increase with riparian richness at low and high DS, respectively (Table 2; Fig S6). Contrastingly, instream leaf-shredder abundances increased with increasing riparian abundance, and more so as FP increased (Table 2; Fig S6). Instream CK increased with riparian CK but only among sites with higher DS, i.e. the mainstem (Table 3, Fig. 3a). Instream FK was positively related to riparian FK, particularly in spring and this relationship increased as flow permanence decreased, i.e. among intermittent sites (Table 3, Fig. 3b).
Leaf stock characteristics differed between network locations and habitats (Table 4) and instream vs. riparian leaf stock characteristics tended to be more similar in the mainstem (pairwise PERMANOVA: F = 3.096; p = 0.034) than in headwaters (F= 10.788, p = 0.001; Fig. 4a). Invertebrate communities differed among habitats, locations and flow regimes (Table 4); significant interactions indicated that communities differed more among locations and flow regimes instream than in the riparian area (Fig 4b, c). Decomposition differed among flow regimes and habitats (Table 4) with greater differences among flow regimes instream (F = 12.127; p < 0.001) than in the riparian zone (F = 0.078; p = 0.760; Fig 4d).