A preliminary classification of running‐water sites in Great Britain based on macro‐invertebrate species and the prediction of community type using environmental data

Abstract

1. Macro-invertebrate species lists were obtained for 268 sites on forty-one river systems throughout Great Britain by qualitative sampling in spring, summer and autumn. Information on twenty-eight environmental variables was also collated for each site. The sites were ordinated on the basis of their species content using detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) and classified by two-way indicator species analysis (TWINSPAN). Correlation coefficients between ordination scores and single environmental variables indicated that Axis 1 distinguished between types of rivers and Axis 2 reflected variation along the length of rivers. A preliminary classification of sites into sixteen groups has been proposed, together with a key which allows new sites to be classified. Information on the species and environmental features which characterize each group is also presented.2. Multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) was employed to predict the group membership of the 268 sites using the twenty-eight environmental variables. 76.1% of sites were classified correctly. An independent assessment of predictive ability using forty test sites yielded a 50% success rate. Predictive ability was higher for the classification presented in this paper than in fifteen additional classifications produced using data from single seasons and/or different taxonomic treatments.3. TWINSPAN and MDA were found to be useful approaches to the classification of running-water sites by their macro-invertebrate fauna and the prediction of community type (as indicated by the occurrence of species in the sites comprising the group) using environmental variables. Extension of the scope of the classification, coupled with the use of additional environmental variables to increase predictive ability, is now in progress.

The British river of the future: How climate change and human activity might affect two contrasting river ecosystems in England

“…It is known that the species composition 511 of the overall community is very sensitive to environmental conditions and this has led to 512 their being used by scientists as indicators of water quality, such as in the RIVPACS model 513 (Wright et al, 1984). It has been argued that an increase in water temperature, through 514 climate change, will be a less important driver of species change than other indirect factors.…”

Theoretical predictions of observed to expected ratios in RIVPACS-type predictive model assessments of stream biological condition

“…1). Wright et al (1984) is the single most frequently cited paper that specifically addresses prediction of the local biota expected under different natural environmental conditions. Of the remaining 16 papers, 10 built on Wright et al (1984) and described aspects or refinements of the modeling approach, 3 explored aspects of the regionalization or typology approaches to setting reference expectations (Hughes et al 1986, Hawkins et al 2000a 1 ; Fig.…”

“…Wright et al (1984) is the single most frequently cited paper that specifically addresses prediction of the local biota expected under different natural environmental conditions. Of the remaining 16 papers, 10 built on Wright et al (1984) and described aspects or refinements of the modeling approach, 3 explored aspects of the regionalization or typology approaches to setting reference expectations (Hughes et al 1986, Hawkins et al 2000a 1 ; Fig. 1), 1 treated the overall challenges in identifying reference conditions and applying them in a uniform manner (Stoddard et al 2006), 1 paper described how paleolimnological data could be used in lakes to identify historical conditions for individual sites (Dixit et al 1999), and 1 compared the performance of different types of biotic indices (Reynoldson et al 1997; Fig.…”

“…Moss et al (1987) (see also Furse et al 1984 [ Fig. 1], Wright et al 1984, Wright 1995 to predict taxon-specific probabilities of detection (P) at different sites from naturally occurring environmental features. The statistical models on which RIVPACS-type systems are based are calibrated with observations made at many reference-quality sites, and the models relate taxon occurrences to multiple environmental gradients.…”

Combining Logistic Models with Multivariate Methods for the Rapid Biological Assessment of Rivers Using Macroinvertebrates

“…Methods like RIVPACS (Wright et al, 1984;Wright, 2000), AUSRIVAS (Parsons and Norris, 1996) and BEAST (Reynoldson et al, 1995(Reynoldson et al, , 1997 use these principles, since the expected fauna is derived from the environmental characteristics (geological, physical and chemical factors) of the area using a set of reference sites which are believed to be unpolluted or unstressed. Such multivariate methods require extensive sets of biotic and abiotic data, covering all types of ecological conditions and gathered seasonally.…”