Macroinvertebrate taxa richness uncertainty and kick sampling in the establishment of Mediterranean rivers ecological status

Ramos-Merchante, Adrián; Prenda, José

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.07.047

Cited by 18 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…At the same time, through different management proposals from a global ecological perspective that set the condition of habitats and species as quality goals, the WFD has served as a freshwater conservation tool at a pan‐European scale (Boon & Lee, 2005). However, some 20 years since its inception, the WFD has failed to deliver on its objectives, and has gone from showing great promise to suffering problems of implementation (Moss, 2008; Ramos‐Merchante & Prenda, 2017; Voulvoulis, Arpon & Giakoumis, 2017). The Directive defines ‘high ecological status’ as the state of the system in the absence of any anthropogenic pressures, or only slight biological deviation from what would be expected under undisturbed conditions (Council of the European Communities, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, as the damage that has been caused by human disturbances is not irreversible, the WFD assumes that the removal of these causes would mean a return to previous conditions (Bouleau & Pont, 2015). As it is impossible at present to define any aquatic location in the Guadalquivir Basin as ‘pristine’ (Ramos‐Merchante & Prenda, 2017), RCs have to be assessed exclusively by analysing historical data or data from other rivers in the same ecoregion. Historical reference points are critical for the measurement and interpretation of long‐term changes, and for the establishment of meaningful targets for management, restoration and recovery, such as the WFD RC concept.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Historical distribution of freshwater fishes and the reference conditions concept in a large Mediterranean basin

Ramos-Merchante

Sáez-Gómez

Prenda

2021

Aquatic Conservation

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The European Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC (WFD) defines the ecological status of aquatic systems as the deviation between their present biological state and that which would be expected in the absence of any major human disturbance, referred to by the WFD as the ‘reference condition’ (RC). It assumes that their biotic composition should remain balanced and constant over time. This study tested both assumptions against an analysis of the historical distribution of the fish fauna in a large and highly disturbed Mediterranean basin. If fish communities change substantially over time, it will mean that the validity of the RC concept comes into question. Using presence/absence data for historical native fish fauna from the Guadalquivir Basin, distribution changes among sub‐basins were quantified by mapping between the nineteenth century and today. The range of two native species (Anguilla anguilla and Salmo trutta) has changed significantly. In addition, the diadromous species assemblage has almost become locally extinct, with the exception of the eel. Finally, most Guadalquivir sub‐basins (94.7%) have suffered major changes in the composition of their fish communities, either by losing native species or by adding new non‐native species. These results render the definition of any RC unlikely. In Mediterranean areas, the WFD objective of ‘good ecological status’ recovery based on the integrity of aquatic communities is a theoretical rather than a real goal. Nonetheless, the WFD provides an ecological guiding principle that can also be transferred to the conservation of freshwater ecosystems. As an alternative to the RC concept in Mediterranean lotic ecosystems, specific multimetric indices can be used, based on expert criteria, the metrics of which can also relate to the conservation value of water bodies, and not only to their ecological status.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical distribution of freshwater fishes and the reference conditions concept in a large Mediterranean basin

Ramos-Merchante

Sáez-Gómez

Prenda

2021

Aquatic Conservation

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“…Practitioners are well aware of sampling differences (e.g. 40), but have typically focused on how those errors propagated to aggregated metrics, rather than explicitly quantifying the sources of uncertainty (23). Hierarchical occupancy models accommodate irregularly sampled data, estimate community properties (that extend inference to rare taxa), and allow straightforward biological interpretations of those parameter estimates (41).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metabarcoding a Metacommunity: detecting change in a wetland wilderness

Буш

Compson

et al. 2019

Preprint

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The complexity and natural variability of ecosystems present a challenge for reliable detection of change due to anthropogenic influences. This issue is exacerbated by necessary trade-offs that reduce the quality and resolution of survey data for assessments at large-scales. The Peace-Athabasca Delta (PAD) is a large inland wetland complex in northern Alberta, Canada. Despite its geographic isolation, the PAD is threatened by encroachment of oil sands mining in the Athabasca watershed, and hydroelectric dams in the Peace watershed. Methods capable of reliably detecting changes in ecosystem health are needed to evaluate and manage risks. Between 2011 and 2016, aquatic macroinvertebrates were sampled across a gradient of wetland flood frequency, applying both microscope-based morphological identification, and DNA metabarcoding. Using multi-species occupancy models, we demonstrate that DNA metabarcoding detected a much broader range of taxa and more taxa per sample compared to traditional morphological identification, and was essential to identifying significant responses to flood and thermal regimes. We show that family-level occupancy masks high variation among genera, and for the first time, quantify the bias of barcoding primers on the probability of detection in a natural community. Interestingly, patterns of community assembly were near random, suggesting a strong role of stochasticity in the dynamics of the metacommunity. This variability seriously compromises effective monitoring at local scales, but also reflects resilience to hydrological and thermal variability. Nevertheless, simulations showed the greater efficiency of metabarcoding, particularly at a finer taxonomic resolution, provided the statistical power needed to detect change at the landscape scale.

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“…The procedure accounts only for the stochastic sampling effect, and it represents only a fraction of the entire variability represented by other sources of variation, such as local heterogeneity (e.g. Laini et al, 2014;Ramos-Merchante and Prenda, 2017). In other words, the procedure attempts to estimate the index precision, not the accuracy (Dixon, 1993).…”

Section: Bootstrapmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even though the performance of this index has been extensively tested across Europe especially for harmonisation purpose (e.g. Bennett et al, 2011), a wide knowledge gap still exists concerning the accuracy of the metrics (but see Clarke et al, 2006b;Clarke, 2013;Ramos-Merchante and Prenda, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance of the STAR_ICMi macroinvertebrate index and implications for classification and biomonitoring of rivers

Spitale

2017

Knowl. Manag. Aquat. Ecosyst.

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-Although biomonitoring is the core approach adopted by the European Union's Water Framework Directive (WFD), many biotic indices still lack a thorough analysis of their performance and uncertainty. The multihabitat sampling and the application of STAR_ICMi index on macroinvertebrates are the standard methods to assess the ecological status of rivers in Italy. Ever since the Italians' implementation, dates back to 2010, few studies have tested the index performance with different sampling efforts, and even rarer are those assessing index uncertainty. However, these are worthwhile topics to investigate because all the Environmental Agencies are applying this index with both ecological and economic consequences. Aims of this study were (i) to assess the effect of subsampling on the STAR_ICMi index, (ii) to propose a standard method to calculate the index precision, and (iii) to test several less timeconsuming alternatives to census all the individuals in the sample. I showed that the index is strongly affected by subsampling, and unbiased comparisons of ecological status can only be done at the same sampling effort. The index precision, calculated by bootstrapping the observed abundance of taxa, was so low in some circumstances, to increase the risk of misclassification. Finally, I showed that to avoid counting all the individuals in a sample, it is possible to estimate the most abundant taxa using a rank-abundance model. With this less time-consuming method, the STAR_ICMi index is predicted with sufficient precision.Keywords: sampling effort / rarefaction / index uncertainty / sampling variation / Italy Résumé -Performance de l'indice macroinvertébrés STAR_ICMi et implications pour la classification et la biosurveillance des cours d'eau. Bien que le biomonitoring soit l'approche de base adoptée par la directive-cadre sur l'eau de l'Union européenne, de nombreux indices biotiques manquent encore d'une analyse approfondie de leur performance et de leur incertitude. L'échantillonnage multihabitat et l'application de l'indice STAR_ICMi sur les macroinvertebrés sont les méthodes standard pour évaluer l'état écologique des rivières en Italie. Depuis leur mise en oeuvre qui remonte à 2010, peu d'études ont testé la performance de l'indice avec différents efforts d'échantillonnage, et encore plus rares sont ceux qui évaluent l'incertitude de l'indice. Cependant, ce sont des sujets intéressants à étudier parce que toutes les agences environnementales appliquent cet indice avec des conséquences écologiques et économiques. Les objectifs de cette étude étaient les suivants : (i) évaluer l'effet du sous-échantillonnage sur l'indice STAR_ICMi, (ii) proposer une méthode standard pour calculer la précision de l'indice et (iii) tester plusieurs alternatives moins coûteuses au recensement de tous les individus dans l'échantillon. L'indice est fortement influencé par le sous-échantillonnage et des comparaisons impartiales de l'état écologique ne peuvent être faites qu'au même effort d'échantillonnage. La précision de l'ind...

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Macroinvertebrate taxa richness uncertainty and kick sampling in the establishment of Mediterranean rivers ecological status

Cited by 18 publications

References 51 publications

Historical distribution of freshwater fishes and the reference conditions concept in a large Mediterranean basin

Historical distribution of freshwater fishes and the reference conditions concept in a large Mediterranean basin

Metabarcoding a Metacommunity: detecting change in a wetland wilderness

Performance of the STAR_ICMi macroinvertebrate index and implications for classification and biomonitoring of rivers

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