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Can Species Distribution Models Aid Bioassessment when Reference Sites are Lacking? Tests Based on Freshwater Fishes

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Abstract

Recent literature reviews of bioassessment methods raise questions about use of least-impacted reference sites to characterize natural conditions that no longer exist within contemporary landscapes. We explore an alternate approach for bioassessment that uses species site occupancy data from museum archives as input for species distribution models (SDMs) stacked to predict species assemblages of freshwater fishes in Texas. When data for estimating reference conditions are lacking, deviation between richness of contemporary versus modeled species assemblages could provide a means to infer relative biological integrity at appropriate spatial scales. We constructed SDMs for 100 freshwater fish species to compare predicted species assemblages to data on contemporary assemblages acquired by four independent surveys that sampled 269 sites. We then compared site-specific observed/predicted ratios of the number of species at sites to scores from a multimetric index of biotic integrity (IBI). Predicted numbers of species were moderately to strongly correlated with the numbers observed by the four surveys. We found significant, though weak, relationships between observed/predicted ratios and IBI scores. SDM-based assessments identified patterns of local assemblage change that were congruent with IBI inferences; however, modeling artifacts that likely contributed to over-prediction of species presence may restrict the stand-alone use of SDM-derived patterns for bioassessment and therefore warrant examination. Our results suggest that when extensive standardized survey data that include reference sites are lacking, as is commonly the case, SDMs derived from generally much more readily available species site occupancy data could be used to provide a complementary tool for bioassessment.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by The University of Texas at Austin, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department State Wildlife Grant (Data standardization and georeferencing of the Fishes of Texas database, F06AF00007) made available through the United States Fish and Wildlife Service’s State Wildlife Grant program (T-106), and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (Digital Fish Atlas grant contract No. 582-11-99736). Thanks to the thousands of collectors who contributed to the Fishes of Texas database. We also thank Gary Garrett, Tim Birdsong, Kevin Mayes, and Josh Perkin for early discussions and concept reviews, 6 anonymous reviewers, and Meagan Bean, Preston Bean, Steven Curtis, Thom Heard, Douglas Knabe, Kristy Kollaus, Doug Martin, Allison Pease, Zach Shattuck, Jason Taylor, and Gene Wilde for help in compiling portions of the survey databases used in our analyses.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Integrative Biology, Biodiversity Collections, University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA

    Ben J. Labay, Dean A. Hendrickson & Adam E. Cohen

  2. Department of Biology/Aquatic Station, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, USA

    Timothy H. Bonner

  3. Department of Biology, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA

    Ryan S. King

  4. River Studies Program, Inland Fisheries, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, San Marcos, TX, USA

    Leroy J. Kleinsasser & Gordon W. Linam

  5. Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Kirk O. Winemiller

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  1. Ben J. Labay
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Correspondence to Ben J. Labay.

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Labay, B.J., Hendrickson, D.A., Cohen, A.E. et al. Can Species Distribution Models Aid Bioassessment when Reference Sites are Lacking? Tests Based on Freshwater Fishes. Environmental Management 56, 835–846 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-015-0567-0

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