**7. Conclusion**

Rivers in Tropical Asia is closely related to the effect of seasonal flow imposed by unpredict‐ able monsoon and seasonal rainfall [34, 35]. Several studies have analyzed the changes of benthic community dictated by seasonal rainfall [36–38], including those in Peninsular Malaysia [39–41]. In general, rainfall pattern in Malaysia is much influenced by wind flow pattern during the seasonal period. To some extent, it is also influenced by local topography. The present study indicated that seasonalrainfall has not significantly affected the distribution of benthic communities in the four studied rivers. This study is in line with the findings from Refs. [33, 42]. The anthropogenic impacts were more significant than the seasonal rainfall. However, the EPT populations were seen correlated to seasonal variation, as been reported earlier by Suhaila et al. [40] in Gunung Jerai Forest Reserve. According to Ref. [43], these types of species react quickly to the changes in environment.

**Figure 2.** Illustrative schematic of the potential interactions between the threats, impact, and the response to the stream macroinvertebrate assemblage.

The present findings reveal that human‐induced changes in natural habitat are the ultimate causes explaining the alteration in macroinvertebrates biodiversity. There is no doubt that anthropogenic disturbance impacted the structure of macroinvertebrate communities, either in the tropics or in the temperates [44–47]. Land use change is an integration of various human activities that negatively impact the river ecosystem. Among which, flow variability and sediments transport into the river by impervious surface and drainage in urban areas, stream channelization, agriculture, and deforestation. All of these threats will be manifested in changes in flows, benthic habitat conditions, and riffle‐pool integrity. **Figure 2** presents an illustrative example of how macroinvertebrate communities can respond to land use change through a chain of indirect effects that lead to changes to the macroinvertebrate assemblage in both taxa richness and relative abundance.
