Performance comparison of two biotic indices measuring the ecological status of water bodies in the Southern Baltic and Gulf of Lions

Fleischer, Dirk; Grémare, Antoine; Labrune, Céline; Rumohr, Heye; Berghe, E. Vanden; Zettler, Michael L.

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2007.06.011

Cited by 37 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Since the original version of BQI is known to be sampling effort dependent (e.g. increase in sampling effort results in higher probability of obtaining rare species), the adjusted calculation was applied (Fleischer et al 2007, Fleischer andZettler 2009): In Eq. (1) above, n denotes the observed species number.…”

Section: Benthic Quality Index Calculationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to challenge this hypothesis, we assessed the performance of Benthic Quality Index (BQI) in a coastal ecosystem, highly affected by the zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha. BQI is a widely used multimetric indicator of benthic community condition and functionality (Rosenberg et al 2004, Fleischer et al 2007, Fleischer and Zettler 2009, Leonardson et al 2009). Although designed for application in marine areas (Borja et al 2003, Rosenberg et al 2004, it has proved to be suitable for areas with strong salinity gradients given that tolerance levels of species are properly adjusted and assigned for the specific area .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…BQI is reproducible and has been tested and validated in different marine ecosystems with varying environmental conditions (e.g. Labrune et al 2006, Fleischer et al 2007, therefore it was advised by the international expert groups (e.g. HELCOM CORESET) for distinguishing impacted habitats from undisturbed ones.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Invasive ecosystem engineers and biotic indices: Giving a wrong impression of water quality improvement?

Zaiko

Daunys

2015

Ecological Indicators

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Abstract:Benthic component of an ecosystem is considered in ecological status assessment of the key European Directives. Most of the metrics proposed for the benthic quality assessment are biodiversity based. Their robustness and applicability are widely discussed in many recent studies. However an impact of invasive alien species on biotic indices and environmental quality assessments has been largely overlooked by researchers so far. In the current study we assessed Benthic Quality Index (BQI) in a coastal ecosystem, highly affected by the invasive zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha. Zebra mussel is able of modifying benthic habitats and enhancing local biodiversity. In the analyzed ecosystem it affected benthic species richness, abundance and community structure. As a result the calculated BQI values were significantly higher in the presence of zebra mussel with evident outliers in samples with particularly high zebra mussel abundances. Therefore we found that BQI determined in our study was artificially elevated providing false signal of the ecological status improvement. Based on the results presented, we suggested data correction framework that has been tested on the current dataset and proved to be effective minimizing zebra mussel impact on BQI assessment. Our experience could be applied for other coastal ecosystems invaded by the zebra mussel or any other aquatic invasive species with resembling biological traits and bioinvasion impacts. Highlights: We test the effect of an invasive alien species on ecological quality assessment  We calculate Benthic Quality Index for the coastal lagoon affected by zebra mussel  Zebra mussel may modify benthic habitats enhancing local biodiversity  This might bias BQI by showing false improvement of ecological status  We suggest a framework how the this bias could be minimized

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Section: Benthic Quality Index Calculationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Invasive ecosystem engineers and biotic indices: Giving a wrong impression of water quality improvement?

Zaiko

Daunys

2015

Ecological Indicators

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“…Even though many studies have addressed this issue (e.g. Vlek et al 2004, Fleischer et al 2007), very few of the methodologies used in the WFD present information on the robustness of their metrics or on the accuracy and variation of the results obtained (Borja et al 2008, Mavri< et al 2013.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of offshore tuna farming on benthic assemblages in the Eastern Mediterranean

Moraitis¹,

Papageorgiou²,

Dimitriou³

et al. 2013

Aquacult. Environ. Interact.

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The spatial effects of 2 tuna farms on the benthic community were investigated in the Eastern Mediterranean during the fattening period. The impact on benthic fauna was assessed in the vicinity of the fish farms (beneath and at various distances from the cages) using a variety of benthic indicators used for the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). There was a general consensus that most of the samples (95%) were acceptable, i.e. of 'good' or 'high' ecological status. The biotic indices were also compared between 2 different mesh sizes, total (resulting from the sum of the fractions of 1 and 0.5 mm mesh fractions) and 1 mm mesh, in order to assess the variability of the results. The indicators showed the same pattern between the 2 different sieve mesh sizes. The variability in the ecological status assigned by each indicator was also examined among the replicates taken from each station. Our results showed that one replicate is not sufficient for monitoring purposes, and we suggest obtaining more replicates while using indicators requiring less taxonomic effort for sample processing. Neither fish farm had a significant impact on benthic communities, due mainly to the exposed nature of the study site.

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“…The computation of AMBI is based on the sole sensitivity/tolerance concept (Borja et al 2000), which makes it largely sampling effort-independent (Fleischer et al 2007, Muxika et al 2007b. Conversely, BQI also takes into account species richness (S) through a log(S + 1) term (Rosenberg et al 2004), which makes it sampling effort-dependent when computed on lumped data (Fleischer et al 2007) and/or on individual samples collected with different gears.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of the performances of two biotic indices based on the MacroBen database

Grémare¹,

Labrune²,

Berghe³

et al. 2009

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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The pan-European MacroBen database was used to compare the AZTI Marine Biotic Index (AMBI) and the Benthic Quality Index (BQI ES ), 2 biotic indices which rely on 2 distinct assessments of species sensitivity/tolerance (i.e. AMBI EG and BQI E[S 50 ] 0.05 ) and which up to now have only been compared on restricted data sets. A total of 12 409 stations were selected from the database. This subset (indicator database) was later divided into 4 marine and 1 estuarine subareas. We computed E(S 50 ) 0.05 in 643 taxa, which accounted for 91.8% of the total abundances in the whole marine indicator database. AMBI EG and E(S 50 ) 0.05 correlated poorly. Marked heterogeneities in E(S 50 ) 0.05 between the marine and estuarine North Sea and between the 4 marine subareas suggest that sensitivity/tolerance levels vary among geographical areas. High values of AMBI were always associated with low values of BQI ES , which underlines the coherence of these 2 indices in identifying stations with a bad ecological status (ES). Conversely, low values of AMBI were sometimes associated with low values of BQI ES resulting in the attribution of a good ES by AMBI and a bad ES by BQI ES . This was caused by the dominance of species classified as sensitive by AMBI and tolerant by BQI ES . Some of these species are known to be sensitive to natural disturbance, which highlights the tendency of BQI ES to automatically classify dominant species as tolerant. Both indices thus present weaknesses in their way of assessing sensitivity/tolerance levels (i.e. existence of a single sensitivity/tolerance list for AMBI and the tight relationship between dominance and tolerance for BQI ES ). Future studies should focus on the (1) clarification of the sensitivity/tolerance levels of the species identified as problematic, and (2)

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Performance comparison of two biotic indices measuring the ecological status of water bodies in the Southern Baltic and Gulf of Lions

Cited by 37 publications

References 25 publications

Invasive ecosystem engineers and biotic indices: Giving a wrong impression of water quality improvement?

Invasive ecosystem engineers and biotic indices: Giving a wrong impression of water quality improvement?

Effects of offshore tuna farming on benthic assemblages in the Eastern Mediterranean

Comparison of the performances of two biotic indices based on the MacroBen database

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