Low levels of agreement among experts using best professional judgment to assess benthic condition in the San Francisco Estuary and Delta

Thompson, B.; Weisberg, Stephen B.; Melwani, A. R.; Lowe, S.; Ranasinghe, J. Ananda; Cadien, Donald B.; Dauer, Daniel M.; Díaz, Robert J.; Fields, Wayne C.; Kellogg, M. Lisa; Montagne, David E.; Ode, Peter R.; Reish, Donald J.; Slattery, Peter N.

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.03.020

Cited by 18 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In contrast to these previous studies, Bay et al (2009) and Thompson et al (2012) expressed concerns about BPJ agreement. Bay et al (2009) argued professional bias and a lack of complete data resulted in poor agreement among professionals in their study.…”

Section: Assessment Metrics and Best Professional Judgmentcontrasting

confidence: 73%

“…Bay et al (2009) argued professional bias and a lack of complete data resulted in poor agreement among professionals in their study. Thompson et al (2012) concluded that poor agreement may have been a result of a lack of knowledge among the experts in the specific conditions of that study. Regardless, these studies did show examples in which BPJ was potentially a questionable source of benchmarks for indices.…”

Section: Assessment Metrics and Best Professional Judgmentmentioning

confidence: 96%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Testing the use of best professional judgment to create biological benchmarks for habitat assessment of wetlands and oak savannas in northwestern Indiana

Gordon

Rothrock

Labus

2016

Ecological Indicators

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Assessment Metrics and Best Professional Judgmentcontrasting

confidence: 73%

Section: Assessment Metrics and Best Professional Judgmentmentioning

confidence: 96%

Testing the use of best professional judgment to create biological benchmarks for habitat assessment of wetlands and oak savannas in northwestern Indiana

Gordon

Rothrock

Labus

2016

Ecological Indicators

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…These discussions would have to focus especially on species with a wide ecological range of occurrence and tolerance, and with regard to their (functional) role in the local ecosystem and response to the environment, as illustrated in this study (Table 5). While useful, expert elicitation of best professional judgement can also fail [85]. There is unlikely to be any single approach that always works, and the incorporation of multiple lines of evidence in condition assessment is probably most powerful.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Myths of Indicator Species: Issues and Further Consideration in the Use of Static Concepts for Ecological Applications

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The use of static indicator species, in which species are expected to have a similar sensitivity or tolerance to either natural or human-induced stressors, does not account for possible shifts in tolerance along natural environmental gradients and between biogeographic regions. Their indicative value may therefore be considered at least questionable. In this paper we demonstrate how species responses (i.e. abundance) to changes in sediment grain size and organic matter (OM) alter along a salinity gradient and conclude with a plea for prudency when interpreting static indicator-based quality indices. Six model species (three polychaetes, one amphipod and two bivalves) from the North Sea, Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean Sea region were selected. Our study demonstrated that there were no generic relationships between environment and biota and half of the studied species showed different responses in different seas. Consequently, the following points have to be carefully considered when applying static indicator-based quality indices: (1) species tolerances and preferences may change along environmental gradients and between different biogeographic regions, (2) as environment modifies species autecology, there is a need to adjust indicator species lists along major environmental gradients and (3) there is a risk of including sibling or cryptic species in calculating the index value of a species.

show abstract

“…; Thompson et al . ; Keeley, Macleod & Forrest ). Some of these efforts have been quite successful and may provide a better starting point than focusing on identifying or developing assessment systems based on indices or multi‐metrics using a pressure–impact framework, especially in multi‐stressor environments characterised by highly complex stressor interactions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We find it important to put more effort into describing reference conditions and also into interpreting the normative definitions of good, moderate, poor and bad in the sense of the WFD (see Willby 2011) as a framework for developing assessment methods. Only few attempts have been made to thoroughly investigate the scientific strength of using expert judgments to assess community conditions and only for benthic macroinvertebrates (but see Teixeira et al 2010;Thompson et al 2012;Keeley, Macleod & Forrest 2012). Some of these efforts have been quite successful and may provide a better starting point than focusing on identifying or developing assessment systems based on indices or multi-metrics using a pressure-impact framework, especially in multi-stressor environments characterised by highly complex stressor interactions.…”

Section: P E R S P E C T I V E S F O R B I O M O N I T O R I N Gmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new paradigm for biomonitoring: an example building on the Danish Stream Plant Index

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary Despite intensive efforts for more than a decade to develop Water Framework‐compliant assessment systems, shortcomings continue to appear. In particular, the lack of reference conditions has hindered the development of assessment systems capturing the heart of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) – that ecological status should be set as the deviation from the natural, undisturbed condition. Recently, the Danish Stream Plant Index (DSPI) was developed. This system contrasts existing systems in that it builds on an expert interpretation of the normative definitions of ecological status classes in the WFD without taking pressure–impact relationships into account. Here, we substantiate the approach taken in the development of DSPI and examine whether the DSPI class decreases with increasing level of anthropogenic stress and, additionally, whether the deviation from the natural undisturbed condition increases with decreasing DSPI class sensu WFD using trait composition of plant assemblages from Danish streams around year 1900 as a reference. We furthermore examine the trait composition of the vegetation in sites classified into different DSPI status classes to explore whether predictable patterns exist that can be used to identify the ultimate cause(s) of failure to meet ecological goals and help guide the selection of appropriate mitigation measures. We observed that DSPI declined with several parameters indicative of environmental stress in Danish streams and, furthermore, that the deviation from the natural undisturbed condition regarding the trait composition of plant communities declined with increasing DSPI, implying that the trait composition of plant communities in the high DSPI status class was most similar to those occurring in Danish streams around year 1900. We also found that trait characteristics capable of disentangling important stressors in Danish streams varied consistently among sites classified into different DSPI classes. Based on our findings, we call for new thinking. We suggest that more effort should be directed at describing reference conditions and interpreting the normative definitions of good, moderate, poor and bad instead of focusing solely on developing assessment systems using pressure–impact frameworks. We find this particularly important with respect to streams as these are seldom impacted by only a single stressor.

show abstract

Low levels of agreement among experts using best professional judgment to assess benthic condition in the San Francisco Estuary and Delta

Cited by 18 publications

References 22 publications

Testing the use of best professional judgment to create biological benchmarks for habitat assessment of wetlands and oak savannas in northwestern Indiana

Testing the use of best professional judgment to create biological benchmarks for habitat assessment of wetlands and oak savannas in northwestern Indiana

On the Myths of Indicator Species: Issues and Further Consideration in the Use of Static Concepts for Ecological Applications

A new paradigm for biomonitoring: an example building on the Danish Stream Plant Index

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About