Assessment of Biotic Integrity Using Fish Communities

Abstract

Man's activities have had profound, and usually negative, influences on freshwater fishes from the smallest streams to the largest rivers. Some negative effects are due to contaminants, while others are associated with changes in watershed hydrology, habitat modifications, and alteration of energy sources upon which the aquatic biota depends. Regrettably, past efforts to evaluate effects of man's activities on fishes have attempted to use water quality as a surrogate for more comprehensive biotic assessment. A more refined biotic assessment program is required for effective protection of freshwater fish resources. An assessment system proposed here uses a series of fish community attributes related to species composition and ecological structure to evaluate the quality of an aquatic biota. In preliminary trials this system accurately reflected the status of fish communities and the environment supporting them.

Water quality‐based criteria for toxics: Scientific, regulatory, and political considerations: Site‐specific water quality criteria from in‐stream monitoring data

“…Professional judgment is required in determining a baseline or no effect level for a particular measure, particularly when a healthy reference biological community is not available for comparison. In such circumstances, a good alternative would be the delineation of measures of biological response that can be defined using other available standards of biological integrity, such as the recently proposed index of biotic integrity based on stream fish communities [22,23]. From the present study, we conclude that the biological community upstream of Clinch River Plant was healthy and constituted a suitable standard for comparative evaluations.…”

A new framework to evaluate ecosystem health: a case study in the Wei River basin, China

“…Fish assemblages were an effective indicator on environmental changes, including hydrology regime, water quality, and habitat. Fish were at the top of the aquatic food web in relation to diatoms and invertebrates, which helps to provide an integrative view of the watershed environment (Karr 1981). Meanwhile, fish lag behind the environmental changes.…”

“…Instead, it is determined through a holistic appraisal of streams and their surrounds, which can be named as aquatic ecosystem, including hydrology, water quality, physical form, riparian zone, and aquatic life (e.g., fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages). Fish assemblages have been regarded as an effective biological indicator of environmental quality and anthropogenic stress in aquatic ecosystems since they are relatively easy to identify and their position at the top of the food chain helps to provide an integrative view of the watershed environment (Karr 1981;Simon and Lyons 1995). Then, fish are considered as the indicators of biological integrity.…”

Development and preliminary application of a method to assess river ecological status in the Hai River Basin, north China

“…Gradually, people began to pay close attention to river health, and it became an important objective of river restoration and management schemes (Karr, 1999). In the early 1980s, the first biological method for assessment of stream ecological conditions was introduced by American ecologist Karr, known as the IBI (Index of Biological Integrity) (Karr, 1981). The IBI integrates multiparameters, including fish species, abundance, and reproduction, to indicate stream health condition.…”