A comparison of the sensitivity of stream benthic community indices to effects associated with mines, pulp and paper mills, and urbanization

Abstract

This study examined the relative sensitivities of seven commonly used indices of stream benthic community composition and three multivariate indices to effects associated with mines, pulp and paper mills, and urbanization. The indices included total abundance, number of taxa, diversity (H'), evenness, Hilsenhoff's biotic index (HBI), the BioMAP water quality index (WQI), the percent model affinity (PMA), and the first three ordination axes from a correspondence analysis. The second objective of the study was to determine the degree of redundancy among these indices. Six data sets (two from each of the three types of development) were used to address the objectives. In each data set, replicate benthic samples were collected from reference areas as well as one or more downstream areas exposed to a point-source or non-point-source discharge. The PMA approach and the ordination axes indicated significant differences between the reference and downstream communities for all six data sets (p < 0.05). With the exception of H', each of the other metrics revealed significant effects associated with one or two, but not all three, types of development. For example, the HBI and WQI indicated significant effects associated with pulp and paper mills and urbanization, but not mining. In all studies, effect sizes (i.e., the standardized difference between means for the reference and exposed areas expressed in units of standard deviations [SDs]) exceeded 2 SDs. However, effect sizes for the PMA and the first or second ordination axis scores were generally larger than effect sizes for the other metrics, indicating that these indices were often the most sensitive indicators of development. In addition, a high degree of redundancy was found among the various metrics, perhaps because the effects were large (i.e., >2 SDs). The greater sensitivity of the ordination axes and the PMA approach emphasizes their value as indices of benthic community composition. As a result, we recommend that any suite of indices used for assessing benthic communities should include these types of multivariate metrics.

Macroinvertebrate Assemblages in Shale-Draining Streams of North-Central Arkansas, USA

“…The total number of taxa in Mill Creek was one and one-half times more than that of shale-draining streams. Similar observations on taxa richness in streams with elevated metal levels have been made by Clements [36], Selby et al [37], and Kilgour et al [32].…”

“…High abundance of baetids may be explained by their ability to tolerate metals compared with other ephemeropteran taxa. Some species of the genus Baetis have been shown to be metal-tolerant [32].…”

Analysis of Benthic Invertebrate Communities as a Function of Distance from Two Fish-Processing Plant Effluent Discharges in New Brunswick, Canada

“…Numerous studies have described causal relationships between nutrient-rich industrial discharges and benthic invertebrate assemblage characteristics with the rate of changes being dependent on the intensity of the nutrient discharge (Hilbig and Blacke 2000;Walker et al 2002;Borja et al 2003;Kilgour et al 2004;Gao et al 2005;Saunders et al 2007;Sutherland et al 2007). In a nutrientdeficient areas, a small nutrient input is likely to result in increases of benthic invertebrate density and biomass and sometimes diversity (Morris and Keough 2003).…”

“…Benthic invertebrate assemblages have been used extensively to monitor environmental impacts of various nutrient-enhanced industrial outputs into aquatic systems, such as pulp and paper (Walker et al 2002;Kilgour et al 2004), sewage-treatment plants (Hilbig and Blacke 2000;Borja et al 2003;Saunders et al 2007), and aquaculture (Gao et al 2005;Sutherland et al 2007), but no reports were found documenting the effects of fish-processing plant effluent impacts on benthic invertebrates. The purpose of this study was to discern possible changes in benthic invertebrate communities caused by the discharge of fish-processing plant effluents.…”

River Environment Evaluation Using Biodiversity Information of Benthic Organisms

“…Then, the biodiversity classification was defined according to the number of taxa and divided into 4 classes: A: < 10% (> 9 taxa), B: 10 -50% (6 -9 taxa), C: 50 -90% (3 -5 taxa), and D: > 90% (< 3 taxa). This biodiversity classification does not include the meaning of evenness among the MOE-water quality classes that the indicator taxa collected indicate, although several measures of community structure containing evenness have been applied (Kilgour et al, 2004;Wong et al, 2004;Jähnig and Lorenz, 2008). However, the biodiversity of rivers all throughout Japan could be classified by using this index.…”