Application of an adapted index of biotic integrity to rivers of Lithuania

Kesminas, Vytautas; Virbickas, Tomas

doi:10.1007/978-94-011-4164-2_21

Cited by 17 publications

(25 citation statements)

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“…The European Fish Index (EFI) developed in the FAME project, and the Lithuanian fish index (Lith_FI) proposed for rivers of Ecoregion 15 (Kesminas & Virbickas, 2000) were also used.…”

Section: Metrics and Indices Of Biological Quality Elements (Bqes)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Biological quality metrics: their variability and appropriate scale for assessing streams

et al. 2006

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The concept of spatial scale is at the research frontier in ecology, and although focus has been placed on trying to determine the role of spatial scale in structuring communities, there still is a further need to standardize which organism groups are to be used at which scale and under which circumstances in environmental assessment. This paper contributes to the understanding of the variability at different spatial scales (reach, stream, river basin) of metrics characterizing communities of different biological quality elements (macrophytes, fishes, macroinvertebrates and benthic diatoms) as defined by the Water Framework Directive. For this purpose, high-quality reaches from medium-sized lowland streams of Latvia, Ecoregion 15 (Baltic) were sampled using a nested hierarchical sampling design: (river basin fi stream fi reach). The variability of metrics within the different groups of biological quality elements confirmed that large-bodied organisms (macrophytes and fish) were less variable than small-bodied organisms (macroinvertebrates and benthic diatoms) at reach, stream and river basin scales. Single metrics of biological quality elements had the largest variation at the reach scale compared with stream and basin scales. There were no significant correlations between biodiversity indices of the different organism groups. The correlation between diversity indices (Shannon's and Simpson's) of the biological quality elements (macrophytes, fish, benthic macroinvertebrates and benthic diatoms) and a number of measured environmental variables varied among the different organism groups. Relationships between diversity indices and environmental factors were established for all groups of biological quality elements. Our results showed that metrics of macrophytes and fish could be used for assessing ecological quality at the river basin scale, whereas metrics of macroinvertebrates and benthic diatoms were most appropriate at a smaller scale.

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“…The European Fish Index (EFI) developed in the FAME project, and the Lithuanian fish index (Lith_FI) proposed for rivers of Ecoregion 15 (Kesminas & Virbickas, 2000) were also used.…”

Section: Metrics and Indices Of Biological Quality Elements (Bqes)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Biological quality metrics: their variability and appropriate scale for assessing streams

et al. 2006

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“…The IBI had become a family of multi-metric indices that were regionally adapted and calibrated, because rivers of different regions, as well as their fish communities, were distinctive (Kesminas and Virbickas, 2000). Despite many outstanding works on IBI had already been done (Novotny et al, 2005;Simon et al, 2000), it was still of utmost importance for us to continue this work in Chinese Yangtze River basin.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Annual variations of biotic integrity in the upper Yangtze River using an adapted index of biotic integrity (IBI)

Zhu

Chang

2008

Ecological Indicators

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“…They have had an increasing use during the past years with obvious benefits to stakeholders. However, caution should be advised to generalize the scope of an integrity index, it always needs to be modified and tested for different biogeographical areas and/or taxa (e.g., Lyons et al 1995;Kesminas and Virbickas 2000). In terrestrial ecosystems the IBI approach has seldom been tested, although its usefulness is potentially as large as in aquatic ecosystems (Andreasen et al 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biotic integrity of the arthropod communities in the natural forests of Azores

2006

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The loss of biotic integrity in ecosystems due to human pressure has been receiving much attention from the scientific community. The primary aim of this study is to understand how the increasing human pressure on natural forests in the Azorean archipelago (North Atlantic) is affecting their epigean arthropod communities and which biological parameters it affects most. An expert team did fieldwork covering most of the natural forests (mainly inside nature reserves) of the archipelago using standardized pitfall trapping. To build a multimetric index we tested a number of taxonomic and ecological parameters that can potentially be influenced by disturbance. Sixteen of these were found to be significantly influenced by disturbance in forests. We retained seven metrics due to both, desirable scalability properties and relatively low correlation between them. These included the percentages of endemic and predator species richness and also predator abundance, which are inversely related to disturbance; and the percentages of native and saprophagous species richness and introduced and herbivore abundance, which are positively related to disturbance. All seven metrics were combined in an Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) value. We then proceeded to understand which potential disturbance factors are influencing the biotic integrity of communities and how such influence is felt. Five disturbance factors were found to influence the IBI, although in different ways: the size and fragmentation of reserves, the distance of sites to the reserve borders, the invasion by alien plants and the density of human paths at the sites. Given that only percentages of taxonomical or ecological characteristics were chosen as metrics, we tested and found the scalability of the IBI to be possible, allowing the comparison of sites with different collecting effort or even the comparison of reserves with different areas and numbers of collecting sites in each. Finally, we propose a novel graphical representation for multimetric indices like the IBI, one which allows retaining much of the information that is usually lost in multimetric indices.

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Application of an adapted index of biotic integrity to rivers of Lithuania

Cited by 17 publications

References 0 publications

Biological quality metrics: their variability and appropriate scale for assessing streams

Biological quality metrics: their variability and appropriate scale for assessing streams

Annual variations of biotic integrity in the upper Yangtze River using an adapted index of biotic integrity (IBI)

Biotic integrity of the arthropod communities in the natural forests of Azores

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