Abstract
Studies designed to measure anthropogenic impacts on marine benthic communities depend on the ability of taxonomists to consistently discriminate, identify, and count benthic organisms. To quantify errors and discrepancies in identification and enumeration, 20 samples were completely reprocessed by another one of four participating laboratories. Errors were detected in 13.0% of the data records, affecting total abundance by 2.1%, numbers of taxa by 3.4%, and identification accuracy by 4.7%. Paired t-tests were used to test for differences in the Benthic Response Index (BRI), total abundance, numbers of taxa, and the Shannon-Wiener index between the original and the reanalysis data. Differences in the BRI were statistically insignificant. Although statistically significant differences were observed for numbers of taxa, total abundance, and the Shannon-Wiener index, the differences were small in comparison to the magnitude of differences typically observed between anthropogenically affected and reference sites.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bergen, M., Cadien, D., Dalkey, A., Montagne, D. E., Smith, R. W., Stull, J. K., Velarde, R. G. and Weisberg, S. B.: 2000, ‘Assessment of benthic infaunal condition on the mainland shelf of southern California’, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 64, 421–434.
Eaton, L.: 2001, ‘Development and validation of biocriteria using benthic macroinvertebrates for North Carolina estuarine waters’, Marine Pollution Bulletin 42, 23–30.
Ellis, D. V.: 1988, ‘Quality control of biological surveys’, Marine Pollution Bulletin 19, 506–512.
Ellis, D. V., and Cross, S. F.: 1981, ‘A protocol for inter-laboratory calibrations of biological species identifications (Ring Tests)’, Water Research 15, 1107–1108.
Engle, V. D., Summers, J. K. and Gaston, G. R.: 1994, ‘A benthic index of environmental condition of Gulf of Mexico estuaries’, Estuaries 17, 372–384.
Engle, V. D. and Summers, J. K.: 1999, ‘Refinement, validation, and application of a benthic condition index for Northern Gulf of Mexico estuaries’, Estuaries 22, 624–635.
Paul, J. F., Scott, K. J., Campbell, D. E., Gentile, J. H., Strobel, C. S., Valente, R., Weisberg, S. B., Holland, A. F. and Ranasinghe, J. A.: 2001, ‘Developing and applying a benthic index of estuarine condition for the Virginian Biogeographic Province’, Ecological Indicators 1, 83–99.
Smith, R. W., Bergen, M., Weisberg, S. B., Cadien, D., Dalkey, A., Montagne, D., Stull, J. K. and Velarde, R. G.: 2001, ‘Benthic response index for assessing infaunal communities on the Southern California mainland shelf’, Ecological Applications 11, 1073–1087.
Van Dolah, R. F., Hyland, J. L., Holland, A. F., Rosen, J. S. and Snoots, T. R.: 1999, ‘A benthic index of biological integrity for assessing habitat quality in estuaries of the southeastern USA’, Marine Environmental Research 48, 269–283.
Warwick, R. M., Pearson, T.H. and Ruswahyuni: 1987, ‘Detection of pollution effects on marine macrobenthos: further evaluation of the species abundance/biomass method’, Marine Biology 95, 193–200.
Washington, H. G.: 1984, ‘Diversity, biotic and similarity indices: a review with special relevance to aquatic ecosystems’, Water Resources 19, 653–694.
Weisberg, S. B., Ranasinghe, J. A., Dauer, D. M., Schaffner, L. C., Diaz, R. J. and Frithsen, J. B.: 1997, ‘An estuarine benthic index of biotic integrity (B-IBI) for Chesapeake Bay’, Estuaries 20, 149–158.
Wilson, J. G. and Jeffrey, D. W.: 1994, ‘Benthic biological pollution indices in estuaries’, in: Kramer, K. J. M. (ed), Biomonitoring of coastal waters and estuaries, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, pp. 311–327.
Wu, R. S. S.: 1982, ‘Effects of taxonomic uncertainty on species diversity indices’, Marine Environmental Research 6, 215–225.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ranasinghe, J.A., Montagne, D.E., Weisberg, S.B., Bergen, M., Velarde, R.G. (2003). Variability in the Identification and Enumeration of Marine Benthic Invertebrate Samples and its Effect on Benthic Assessment Measures. In: Melzian, B.D., Engle, V., McAlister, M., Sandhu, S., Eads, L.K. (eds) Coastal Monitoring through Partnerships. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0299-7_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0299-7_18
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6203-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-0299-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive