Kahlert, Maria
- Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
Ongoing climatic change and anthropogenic pressure highlight the importance of reliable assessment of the ecological status of freshwaters. Bioindicators are used widely in ecological assessments as biotic assemblages reflect the environmental conditions in current ecosystems. However, the robustness of bioindicators relies on the transferability of indices and models outside the regions they were derived from. We tested the reliability of stream diatom assemblages as indicators of water chemistry and climatic factors in a cross-regional assessment by developing a predictive model with diatom assemblage data from Sweden and using it to model stream conditions in Finland. The inference models and predictions were performed using the Boosted Regression Trees (BRT) method, separately in species and genus levels. The predictive performance of the calibration models in Sweden were good or moderate for both water chemistry and climatic variables, both at species and genus levels. The most important climatic (growing degree days, r(2) = 0.57) and water chemistry variables (pH, r(2) = 0.65; and total phosphorus (TP), r(2) = 0.52) could be inferred from diatom assemblages relatively well. However, predictive performances of the cross-regional models were low (r(2)
Keywords
Bioindicators; Biomonitoring; Predictive modelling; Stream diatoms
Published in
Ecological Indicators
2020, volume: 113, article number: 106183
Publisher: ELSEVIER
SLU Authors
Global goals (SDG)
UKÄ Subject classification
Ecology
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106183
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/105264