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EFFECT OF TAXONOMIC RESOLUTION ON THE PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF A NEW MACROINVERTEBRATE FIELD SAMPLING PROTOCOL FOR LARGE RIVERS
Citation:
BLOCKSOM, K. A. AND J. E. FLOTEMERSCH. EFFECT OF TAXONOMIC RESOLUTION ON THE PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF A NEW MACROINVERTEBRATE FIELD SAMPLING PROTOCOL FOR LARGE RIVERS. Presented at 5th National Monitoring Conference, San Jose, CA, May 07 - 11, 2006.
Impact/Purpose:
The goal of this research is to develop methods and indicators that are useful for evaluating the condition of aquatic communities, for assessing the restoration of aquatic communities in response to mitigation and best management practices, and for determining the exposure of aquatic communities to different classes of stressors (i.e., pesticides, sedimentation, habitat alteration).
Description:
The performance characteristics of a sampling protocol provide critical information about its utility for diverse bioassessment applications. The taxonomic resolution used to estimate performance can affect such comparisons. Specifically, identification of organisms to family level should result in estimates of precision and sensitivity that differ from those calculated at the genus and species levels. Recently, U.S. EPA developed a new macroinvertebrate field sampling protocol for large rivers with an accompanying laboratory protocol, and a study was conducted to assess the performance characteristics of this protocol. Initially, estimates and evaluations of performance were measured for data at the lowest possible taxon level. However, many states use family- or genus-level data for bioassessment due to cost or other resource constraints. Thus, we re-evaluated precision and sensitivity of the protocol at the family and genus levels in order to determine the effect of taxonomic resolution on these attributes. We evaluated these characteristics using assemblage metrics and examined both the field and laboratory components. Although precision was greater at the family level, with fewer anticipated errors in taxonomic identification, sensitivity to a disturbance gradient was reduced. This study provides an indication of the type of tradeoff that can be expected for varying levels of taxonomic resolution applied to the same protocol.