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VALIDATION OF A RECENTLY DEVELOPED EPIBENTHIC INDEX DEVELOPED FOR NEW JERSEY ESTUARIES
Citation:
Pelletier, M AND J. P. Kurtenbach. VALIDATION OF A RECENTLY DEVELOPED EPIBENTHIC INDEX DEVELOPED FOR NEW JERSEY ESTUARIES. Presented at Estuarine Research Federation Conference, Seattle, WA, September 14-18, 2003.
Description:
An epifaunal index was recently developed for New Jersey estuaries (138 sites). Initial analysis indicated that this index related well to land use gradients from Raritan Bay (more developed) south to Great Bay (less developed). In this study we refined the evaluation by comparing the epibenthic results to infaunal samples collected in slightly deeper water (2-3 m) to determine whether results were comparable. Both indexes were compared to existing ?deep water? sites within each water body to evaluate whether these measures were correlated with existing monitoring results. We are developing models relating land use, water chemistry and sediment chemistry to both the infaunal and benthic indices to determine what signals most strongly influence each index. Currently, sampling of benthic infauna is costly and time-consuming. Use of this epibenthic index has the potential to allow a quicker, cheaper biocriteria measure to be added to New Jersey?s state monitoring program, and may have wider applicability in other shallow estuaries.