Three hundred ways to assess Europe's surface waters: An almost complete overview of biological methods to implement the Water Framework Directive

Birk, Sebastian; Bonne, W.; Borja, Ángel; Brucet, Sandra; Courrat, A.; Poikāne, Sandra; Solimini, Angelo G.; Bund, Wouter van de; Zampoukas, Nikolaos; Hering, Daniel

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.10.009

Cited by 868 publications

(552 citation statements)

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“…Annex V of the WFD outlines the technical requirements for using various characteristics of these four biological quality elements (BQEs) in the assessment: for phytoplankton these are biomass, taxonomic composition and bloom metrics; for macrophytes taxonomic composition and abundance; for benthic invertebrates taxonomic composition, abundance and diversity and for fish taxonomic composition, abundance and age structure. Although some national metrics expressing the responses of several of these characteristics to human pressures were developed and used in lake monitoring programmes prior to the WFD, the Directive has stimulated the development and improvement of a large array of different national methods Solimini et al, 2008;Poikane, 2009;Birk et al, 2012;Brucet et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological status assessment of European lakes: a comparison of metrics for phytoplankton, macrophytes, benthic invertebrates and fish

et al. 2013

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Data on phytoplankton, macrophytes, benthic invertebrates and fish from more than 2000 lakes in 22 European countries were used to develop and test metrics for assessing the ecological status of European lakes as required by the Water Framework Directive. The strongest and most sensitive of the 11 metrics responding to eutrophication pressure were phytoplankton chlorophyll a, a taxonomic composition trophic index and a functional traits index, the macrophyte intercalibration taxonomic composition metric and a Nordic lake fish index. Intermediate response was found for a cyanobacterial bloom intensity index (Cyano), the Ellenberg macrophyte index and a multimetric index for benthic invertebrates. The latter also responded to hydromorphological pressure. The metrics provide information on primary and secondary impacts of eutrophication in the pelagic and the littoral zone of lakes. Several of these metrics were used as common metrics in the intercalibration of national assessment systems or have been incorporated directly into the national systems. New biological metrics have been developed Hydrobiologia (2013) 704:57-74 DOI 10.1007/s10750-012-1436 to assess hydromorphological pressures, based on aquatic macrophyte responses to water level fluctuations, and on macroinvertebrate responses to morphological modifications of lake shorelines. These metrics thus enable the quantification of biological impacts of hydromorphological pressures in lakes.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological status assessment of European lakes: a comparison of metrics for phytoplankton, macrophytes, benthic invertebrates and fish

et al. 2013

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“…Macroinvertebrates were selected as bio-indicators for assessment of river ecological status in the HRB, specifically using (Birk et al, 2012). As biological indicators, macroinvertebrates have many advantages.…”

Section: Biological Indicator-macroinvertebratesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and preliminary application of a method to assess river ecological status in the Hai River Basin, north China

Shan

Ding

Zhao

2016

Journal of Environmental Sciences

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The river ecosystem in the Hai River Basin (HRB), an important economic region in China, is seriously degraded. With the aim of river restoration in the HRB, we developed a method to assess the river's ecological status and conducted a preliminary application of the method.The established method was a predictive model, which used macroinvertebrates as indicator organisms. The river's ecological status was determined by calculating the ratio of observed to expected values (O/E). The method included ecoregionalization according to natural factors, and the selection of reference sites based on combinations of habitat quality and macroinvertebrate community. Macroinvertebrate taxa included Insecta, Crustacea, Gastropoda, and Oligochaeta, with 39 families and 95 genera identified in the HRB. The HRB communities were dominated by pollution tolerant taxa, such as Lymnaeidae, Chironomus, Limnodrilus, Glyptotendipes, and Tubifex. The average ShannonWiener index was 1.40 ± 0.5, indicating a low biodiversity. In the river length of 3.31 × 10 4 km, 55% of the sites were designated poor, with a bad ecological status. Among nine secondary river systems, Luan and Zi-ya had the best and worst river conditions, respectively. Only 17 reference site groups were selected for river management in the 41 ecoregions examined. This study lays the foundation for river restoration and related research in the HRB, and we anticipate further developments of this novel method.

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“…Moreover, macroinvertebrate family richness is generally considered one of the main biological metrics in aquatic ecosystem bioassessments (e.g. Birk et al, 2012).…”

Section: Biological and Environmental Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Change does not happen overnight: a case study on stream macroinvertebrates

Guareschi

Laini

Fenoglio

et al. 2016

Knowl. Manag. Aquat. Ecosyst.

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-The influence of day/night conditions on individual animal/plant species has been widely studied, but diel cycle studies of the entire stream macroinvertebrate community are extremely rare. This study explored potential dissimilarities between daytime and nighttime macroinvertebrate assemblages by extensive fieldwork conducted in the Lemme stream, a natural water course of NW Italy. Here numerous structural and functional metrics (richness, abundance, biomass, indicator taxa, composition, biomonitoring values and feeding groups) were evaluated at the family level. Small-scale environmental variables were investigated to understand possible differences between macroinvertebrate assemblages in the daytime/nighttime. After collecting and identifying 21 459 organisms of 50 taxa, Chironomidae (Diptera) was the most abundant under both day and night conditions. Our findings stressed that similar results and biological information on daytime/nighttime data were obtained. No marked differences could be related to various factors: heterotrophic condition of small-order streams, presence of aquatic predators under night and day conditions, absence of taxa with a specific phototaxis. Of all the environmental variables, velocity was always the most important in both situations, with some differences detected in the importance of the second variable (riverbed substrate diameter). This research, and future studies on different conditions and geographic areas, will contribute knowledge on stream macroinvertebrate diel activity, and provide useful information about efficient sampling strategies.Key-words: aquatic ecology / diel cycle / lotic systems / aggregation / benthic invertebrates Résumé -Le changement ne survient pas dans une nuit : étude sur la communauté de macro-invertébrés d'un cours d'eau. L'influence des conditions jour/nuit sur les espèces animales et végétales a été largement étudiée, tandis que les études à propos du cycle diurne de l'entier de la communauté des macro-invertébrées fluviales sont extrêmement rares. Dans le cadre de cette étude, les différences potentielles entre les assemblages de macro-invertébrés lors du jour et de la nuit ont été explorées grâce à un travail de terrain très appuyé. L'expérience a été conduite près du Lemme, un cours d'eau naturel situé dans le nord-ouest de l'Italie où des nombreux indicateurs structurels et fonctionnels (richesse, abondance, biomasse, taxons indicateurs, composition, valeurs de biosurveillance et groupes d'alimentation) ont été évalués au niveau Famille. Les variables environnementales à petite échelle ont été évaluées aussi dans le but de comprendre les différences possibles entre les assemblages de macro-invertébrés durant le jour et la nuit. Un total de 21 459 organismes appartenant à 50 taxons ont été collectés et identifiés, montrant que le Chironomidae (Diptera) est le plus présent le jour comme la nuit. Nos trouvailles nous ont montré que des résultats similaires ont été obtenus dans des conditions diurnes comme nocturnes. L'absence de différ...

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Three hundred ways to assess Europe's surface waters: An almost complete overview of biological methods to implement the Water Framework Directive

Cited by 868 publications

References 60 publications

Ecological status assessment of European lakes: a comparison of metrics for phytoplankton, macrophytes, benthic invertebrates and fish

Ecological status assessment of European lakes: a comparison of metrics for phytoplankton, macrophytes, benthic invertebrates and fish

Development and preliminary application of a method to assess river ecological status in the Hai River Basin, north China

Change does not happen overnight: a case study on stream macroinvertebrates

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