Calculation of species sensitivity values and their precision in marine benthic faunal quality indices

Abstract

A challenging aspect of benthic quality indices used for assessing the marine environment has been to compile reliable measures of the species' sensitivity to disturbances. Sensitivity values and their uncertainties can be calculated, but a problem to cope with is that the results may depend on the actual proportion of samples from disturbed and undisturbed environments.Here we calculated sensitivity values for each species along an artificial disturbance gradient created by bootstrapping varying numbers of samples from disturbed and undisturbed environments. The values were increasing, decreasing, or more or less constant along this gradient. The lowest value with the lowest uncertainty was adopted as the species sensitivity value.Analyses of the uncertainties indicated that the accuracy rather than the precision might be a concern. We suggest a method to exclude species for which the uncertainty is outside predefined limits as a precaution to reduce bias in the environmental status classification. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords

Benthic invertebrates; Disturbance; Kattegat; Marine Strategy Framework Directive; Skagerrak; Water Framework Directive

Published in

Marine Pollution Bulletin
2015, volume: 93, number: 1-2, pages: 94-102
Publisher: PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

SLU Authors

• Leonardsson, Kjell

  • Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Associated SLU-program

Coastal and sea areas

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology
Fish and Aquacultural Science

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.02.010

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/74974