Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation, Northland College, 1411 Ellis Ave, Ashland, WI, 54806, USA.
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA.
Environ Monit Assess. 2018 Sep 10;190(10):580. doi: 10.1007/s10661-018-6950-6.
Biotic indicators are useful for assessing ecosystem health because the structure of resident communities generally reflects abiotic conditions integrated over time. We used fish data collected over 5 years for 470 Great Lakes coastal wetlands to develop multi-metric indices of biotic integrity (IBI). Sampling and IBI development were stratified by vegetation type within each wetland to account for differences in physical habitat. Metrics were evaluated against numerous indices of anthropogenic disturbance derived from water quality and surrounding land-cover variables. Separate datasets were used for IBI development and testing. IBIs were composed of 10-11 metrics for each of four vegetation types (bulrush, cattail, water lily, and submersed aquatic vegetation). Scores of all IBIs correlated well with disturbance indices using the development data, and the accuracy of our IBIs was validated using the testing data. Our fish IBIs can be used to prioritize wetland protection and restoration efforts across the Great Lakes basin. The IBIs will also be useful in monitoring programs mandated by the Agreement between Canada and the United States of America on Great Lakes Water Quality, such as for assessing Beneficial Use Impairments (BUIs) in Great Lakes Areas of Concern, and in other ecosystem management programs in Canada and the USA.
生物指标可用于评估生态系统健康状况，因为定居群落的结构通常反映了随时间推移而综合的非生物条件。我们使用在 5 年内为 470 个大湖沿海湿地收集的鱼类数据，开发了生物完整性多指标指数 (IBI)。为了考虑到物理生境的差异，在每个湿地内按植被类型进行采样和 IBI 开发分层。这些指标与水质和周围土地覆盖变量衍生的许多人为干扰指数进行了评估。IBI 开发和测试使用了单独的数据集。IBI 由四种植被类型（芦苇、香蒲、睡莲和沉水植被）的 10-11 个指标组成。使用开发数据，所有 IBI 的得分与干扰指数密切相关，并且使用测试数据验证了我们的 IBI 的准确性。我们的鱼类 IBI 可用于优先考虑大湖流域的湿地保护和恢复工作。这些 IBI 还将在《加拿大和美利坚合众国关于大湖水质的协定》所规定的监测计划中有用，例如用于评估大湖关注区域的有益用途受损情况，以及在加拿大和美国的其他生态系统管理计划中有用。
