You are here:
Application of multiple index development approaches to benthic invertebrate data from the Virginian Biogeographic Province
Citation:
PELLETIER, M. C., A. J. GOLD, L. GONZALEZ, AND C. OVIATT. Application of multiple index development approaches to benthic invertebrate data from the Virginian Biogeographic Province. Presented at North Atlantic Chapter of the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (NAC SETAC) 17th Annual Meeting, Freeport, ME, June 08 - 10, 2011.
Impact/Purpose:
Macroinvertebrates are commonly used as biomonitors to detect pollution impacts in estuaries. The condition of these communities has been commonly assessed using benthic indices, which can be assembled using a variety of techniques. The goal of this research was to assess three common approaches used in the United States to develop indices using available monitoring data from the US Environmental Protection Agencys Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program.
Description:
Benthic invertebrate indices have commonly been utilized to assess benthic invertebrate communities. These indices have been constructed using different techniques, but have shown different levels of application success. For example, the EMAP Virginian Province Index did not perform well in a smaller estuarine complex. Similarly, the Chesapeake Bay Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity did not perform well outside of Chesapeake Bay, despite multiple metric and good habitat separation. In this study, we assembled multiple variables (metrics) from the literature and applied different methods of index compilation to explore the relative strengths and weaknesses of the indices. Three different approaches were utilized -- two multimetric indices (Chesapeake Bay approach and the Mebane approach) and a logistic regression technique. The data were subdivided by habitat (salinity and grain size) and indices compiled using the same initial group of benthic metrics. Each approach was examined for its classification accuracy for both reference and impaired sites for the entire Virginian Province. The Chesapeake Bay approach did not perform well in this study. In contrast, another multimetric approach, the Mebane approach, performed well, as did the logistic regression approach. Both techniques have promise for index development and could be useful in applying a biological condition gradient to estuaries.