Benthic soft-bodied algae as bioindicators of stream water quality

Abstract

-This review presents the state-of-the-art of benthic soft-bodied algae as biondicators of stream and river water quality, with emphasis on bioassessments set by the legislation (e.g., European Water Framework Directive, USA Clean Water Act) to promote the restoration and ensure ecological sustainability of water resources. The advantages and shortcomings of a variety of bioassessment field and laboratory methods for algae are discussed. The increasing use of soft-bodied algae in biotic indices to assess individual anthropogenic stressors, and in multimetric indices of biotic integrity to evaluate ecological condition in streams is summarized. Rapid microscopic and molecular approaches for inferring nutrient supply with heterocystous cyanobacteria and other sensitive algae are proposed. The need of better understanding of soft-bodied algae as bioindicators is discussed and suggestions are made for obtaining meaningful bioassessment information with cost-efficient efforts.

Photoautotrophic-Periphyton Composition in Reaches with Differing Nutrient Concentrations in the Harpeth River of Middle Tennessee

“…INTRODUCTION Bioassessments that characterize and quantify the impacts of eutrophication are prerequisites to monitoring the efficacy of management practices designed to improve the integrity of nutrient-impaired waters (Smucker and Vis 2009). Algae are a major component of the trophic base of most shallow lotic systems and assemblage composition may reflect periphyton habitat quality (Stancheva and Sheath 2016). The composition of algae assemblages of the majority of streams in the Interior Plateau Level III Ecoregion that extends from southern Indiana and Ohio to northern Alabama is unknown (Grimmett and Lebkuecher 2017).…”

Modeling the species richness and abundance of lotic macroalgae based on habitat characteristics by artificial neural networks: a potentially useful tool for stream biomonitoring programs

“…The stream macroalgae and environmental data were collected in eighty-nine 10-m long stream segments (first-to third-orders), in reference conditions (nonimpacted sites or those with minimal environmental impacts) located in ten protected areas for conservation (National or State Parks) of the four major biomes of southern Brazil, between latitudes 22°31′10″ S-33°44′59″ S and longitudes 48°01′08″ W-57°36′05″ W. Stream macroalgal samples were purposely collected in protected areas because we based our sampling program on the Reference Condition Approach (RCA) (Bailey et al 2004). The central idea of the RCA is to build models based on reference conditions that allow to predict the attributes of the biota under natural or minimally impacted condition (Bailey et al 2004;Stancheva and Sheath 2016). In addition, the largest possible data set, including lotic environments with different characteristics and from distinct biomes (always considering the Reference Condition, however), was used in order to allow the maximum possible generalization of the model.…”

Pengembangan metode bioasesmen untuk penilaian kualitas air Sungai Cihampelas di DAS Citarum

“…Indeks Integritas Biotik merupakan salah satu bentuk indeks multimetrik yang mulai dikembangkan pada ikan oleh Karr (1981). Pengembangan Indeks Integritas Biotik pada diatom telah dilakukan pada dekade lalu bersama dengan makrozoobentos dalam program bioasesmen di Amerika Serikat (Stancheva dan Sheath, 2016). Adapun pengembangan Indeks Integritas Biotik di Indonesia belum banyak dilakukan (Hadi, 2012…”