Using two classification schemes to develop vegetation indices of biological integrity for wetlands in West Virginia, USA

Abstract

Bioassessment methods for wetlands, and other bodies of water, have been developed worldwide to measure and quantify changes in "biological integrity." These assessments are based on a classification system, meant to ensure appropriate comparisons between wetland types. Using a local site-specific disturbance gradient, we built vegetation indices of biological integrity (Veg-IBIs) based on two commonly used wetland classification systems in the USA: One based on vegetative structure and the other based on a wetland's position in a landscape and sources of water. The resulting class-specific Veg-IBIs were comprised of 1-5 metrics that varied in their sensitivity to the disturbance gradient (R2=0.14-0.65). Moreover, the sensitivity to the disturbance gradient increased as metrics from each of the two classification schemes were combined (added). Using this information to monitor natural and created wetlands will help natural resource managers track changes in biological integrity of wetlands in response to anthropogenic disturbance and allows the use of vegetative communities to set ecological performance standards for mitigation banks.

Striving for consistency in the National Wetland Condition Assessment: developing a reference condition approach for assessing wetlands at a continental scale

“…However, a more widely used, and perhaps more intuitively interpretable, approach for making adjustments for natural conditions is classification (or regionalization). A regional classification scheme (e.g., Omernik’s (1987) ecoregion map) is often used to control for natural variability during development of biological indices (e.g., Moog et al 2004; Stoddard et al 2008; Veselka et al 2010; Minnesota Pollution Control Agency 2015). For wetlands, wetland vegetation type is also an important natural driver of reference expectations.…”

Hydrophytes in the Mid-Atlantic Region: Ecology, Communities, Assessment, and Diversity

“…Plant associations that related to a high percentage of forest, intact buffers, and high soil organic matter were largely comprised of perennial, native species with high conservatism values (see Sect. 6.5.1 for a description of conservatism) have been used as indicators of groundwater (Goslee et al 1997), soil type (Kelley 1922Gordon 1940 ;Bigler and Richardson 1984 ), water chemistry (Jeglum 1971 ;Matters and Bozon 1989 ), and for delineating wetland boundaries (Reed 1988(Reed , 1997Scott et al 1989 ;Segelquist et al 1990 ;Veneman and Tiner 1990 ) and assessing wetland condition (Lopez and Fennessy 2002 ;Miller et al 2006 ;Miller and Wardrop 2006 ;Mack et al 2000 ;Veselka et al 2010 ). Working in central Pennsylvania, Goslee et al ( 1997 ) identifi ed several plant species whose presence was correlated with either groundwater or seasonal surface water-fed wetlands (Table 6.2 ).…”

“…Vegetation IBIs have been developed for wetlands in both Pennsylvania (Miller et al 2006 ) and West Virginia (Veselka et al 2009 ). In addition, some rapid assessment methods have incorporated vegetation metrics as part of their protocol (Brooks et al 1999(Brooks et al , 2009Jacobs 2010 ;Veselka et al 2010 ). Plant-based rapid assessment metrics are primarily based on invasive species (Brooks et al 1999(Brooks et al , 2009Jacobs 2010 ), but Veselka et al ( 2010 ) also incorporated the presence of sediment or nutrient tolerant plant taxa in their West Virginia Wetland Rapid Assessment Protocol (WVWRAP).…”

A national-scale vegetation multimetric index (VMMI) as an indicator of wetland condition across the conterminous United States

“…Many disturbances are reflected in shifts in the presence or abundance of particular plant species (Magee and Kentula 2005; Johnston et al 2008), plant functional or trait groups (Lopez and Fennessy 2002; Quétier et al 2007), plant assemblages (Galatowitsch et al 1999; Magee et al 1999; DeKeyser et al 2009; Johnston et al 2009), or vegetation structural elements (Mack 2007), making vegetation a powerful indicator of wetland condition (Mack and Kentula 2010). Existing VMMIs or VIBIs have proven useful for monitoring condition and prioritizing conservation or management actions for specific wetland types at local or regional scales within the United States and elsewhere (e.g., DeKeyser et al 2003; Miller et al 2006; Reiss 2006; Mack 2007; Hargiss et al 2008; Rothrock et al 2008; Lemly and Rocchio 2009; Mack 2009; Veselka et al 2010; Euliss and Mushet 2011; Genet 2012; Rooney and Bayley 2012; Deimeke et al 2013; Wilson et al 2013; Hernandez et al 2015; Savage et al 2015; Jones et al 2016; Miller et al 2016).…”