Abstract

Legislation in Europe has been adopted to determine and improve the ecological integrity of inland and coastal waters. Assessment is based on four biotic groups, including benthic macroinvertebrate communities. For lakes, benthic invertebrates have been recognized as one of the most difficult organism groups to use in ecological assessment, and hitherto their use in ecological assessment has been limited. In this study, we review and intercalibrate 13 benthic invertebrate-based tools across Europe. These assessment tools address different human impacts: acidification (3 methods), eutrophication (3 methods), morphological alterations (2 methods), and a combination of the last two (5 methods). For intercalibration, the methods were grouped into four intercalibration groups, according to the habitat sampled and putative pressure. Boundaries of the 'good ecological status' were compared and harmonized using direct or indirect comparison approaches. To enable comparison of the methods, three common pressure indices and two common biological multimetric were developed for larger geographical areas. Additionally, we identified the best-performing methods on their responsiveness to different human impacts. Based on these experiences, we provide practical mendations for the development and harmonization of benthic invertebrate assessment methods in lakes similar habitats. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published Elsevier B.V.

Keywords

Biological metrics; Benthic invertebrates; Ecological assessment; Lakes; Water Framework Directive; Pressure response relationships

Published in

Science of the Total Environment
2016, Volume: 543, pages: 123-134

SLU Authors

• Johnson, Richard

  • Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Sandin, Leonard

  • Department of Aquatic Resources (SLU Aqua), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Associated SLU-program

Lakes and watercourses


Sustainable Development Goals

Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development


UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences
Ecology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.11.021

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/71175