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DEVELOPMENT OF A STREAM BENTHOS INTEGRITY INDEX (SBII) FOR THE MID-ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS REGION
Citation:
Klemm, D J., F A. Fulk, W T. Thoeny, AND K A. Blocksom. DEVELOPMENT OF A STREAM BENTHOS INTEGRITY INDEX (SBII) FOR THE MID-ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS REGION. Presented at Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Philadelphia, PA, November 12-14, 1999.
Description:
A multimetric index using benthic macroinvertebrates was developed to evaluate the biological condition of wadeable streams in the MAHA region. Ecological concepts and biodiversity of macroinvertebrates were used to develop the SBII, and then a statistical approach was used to validate the index. Benthic macroinvertebrate samples were collected from 647 sites in the MAHA region during 1993-1995 as part of the USEPA's Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP). Macroinvertebrates were collected from riffle/run and pool/glide habitats of wadeable steams and identified to the lowest possible taxon in the laboratory. An initial SBII was developed using ten population and community metrics (number of taxa, HBI, number of individuals/taxon, % intolerant taxa, % non-insects, % chironomids, % individual dominant taxon, % EPT taxa, EPT index, and % oligochaetes/leeches). To assess the statistical robustness of the initial SBII, forty-seven candidate macroinvertebrate metrics were evaluated statistically using univariate and multivariate analyses: 1) to reduce the large number of candidate metrics into a set that captures the information of the benthic macroinvertebrate data, and 2) to ascertain the ability of the selected metrics to discriminate among effects caused by different classes of stressors, such as habitat degradation and pollutant concentrations. The initial SBII was found to be highly correlated with the first principal component of the reduced set of candidate metrics indicating that most of the metrics were well justified statistically. The final SBII consisted of metrics that met statistical criteria and/or best professional judgement.