Can Mediterranean River Plants Translate into Quality Assessment Systems? Venturing into Unexplored Territories

Dodkins, Ian; Aguiar, Francisca C.; Ferreira, María Teresa

doi:10.1002/9781119961819.ch11

Cited by 1 publication

(5 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Temporary rivers in the south (the low discharge T2 rivers, and the large temporary rivers of T5) as well as the shallow rivers away from the source (S3, S4) had poorer correlations between the metric and the nutrient pressure. This is likely to be due to the lower number of indicator species in drier rivers (Dodkins et al, 2011), and indicator species having a weaker association with the water column (i.e. submerged species were rare in southern rivers).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Increasing the number of indicator species could also be achieved by combining diatoms and macrophytes within a single index (e.g. Dodkins et al, 2011).…”

Section: Metric Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, Mediterranean temporary rivers often have hygrophytes and even terrestrial species within the river channel that may be indicative of hydrological regime and prior nutrient status (Dodkins et al, 2011). Terrestrial species were not included in this study, retaining only species with an Aquaticity of five or less (Appendix A) within the dataset, i.e.…”

Section: Selection Of Indicator Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, in northern Portugal 104 aquatic macrophyte species were found in routine surveys, with a mean of 13.5 species per site, whereas in southern Portugal there were only 94 species, with a mean of 12.7 species per site (Dodkins et al, 2011). In the Iberian interior many rivers are dry for a large part of the year, and may have no truly aquatic vascular macrophytes or bryophytes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…In the Iberian interior many rivers are dry for a large part of the year, and may have no truly aquatic vascular macrophytes or bryophytes. Since metrics which use WA of species scores are detrimentally affected by low species numbers (Dodkins et al, 2011) ecological assessment strategies may have to be adapted for countries with Mediterranean climates.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Measuring ecological change of aquatic macrophytes in Mediterranean rivers

et al. 2012

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a b s t r a c tA metric was developed for assessing anthropogenic impacts on aquatic macrophyte ecology by scoring macrophyte species along the main gradient of community change. A measure of ecological quality was then calculated by Weighted Averaging (WA) of these species scores at a monitoring site, and comparison to a reference condition score. This metric was used to illustrate the difficulties of developing aquatic macrophyte indices based on indicator species in Mediterranean rivers. The response of the metric to a nutrient gradient was examined within two different river typologies: the national typology designed for the Water Framework Directive and a typology that segregates the environmental variables to produce maximum species similarity within a river type. Both typologies showed the strong north-south climatic divide in Portugal, with southern rivers having long periods without rainfall and often without flowing water in the summer. Overall, the metric responded well to nutrient impacts however it performed poorly in some southern lowland river types. This was thought to be due to low numbers of aquatic macrophytes in temporary rivers. Non-aquatic species that establish in the river channel of temporary rivers may have to be included in indices to improve performance. Also, simple Weighted Averaging (WA) metrics may be insensitive to abundance changes and loss of rarer indicators in lowland Mediterranean rivers. More sophisticated methods of using WA are suggested, as well as further research into developing assessment methods specific to the character of Mediterranean rivers.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Increasing the number of indicator species could also be achieved by combining diatoms and macrophytes within a single index (e.g. Dodkins et al, 2011).…”

Section: Metric Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Selection Of Indicator Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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