Diversity of freshwater macrobenthos and its use in biological assessment: a critical review of current applications

Abstract

Numerous procedures for biological assessment employ different measures of benthos diversity as a main or additional metric. This paper argues that biological diversity of freshwater macrobenthos is not a strong metric for biological assessment. It is extremely difficult to estimate accurately the taxonomic diversity of the whole macrobenthos. In particular, taxonomic diversity estimations are typically based on taxonomic misconceptions. Moreover, even if it is accurately estimated, it has too many drawbacks to be a reliable metric: it is affected by many factors important only for particular taxa and dependent on parameters that are extremely difficult to define and to quantify. Certain requirements are presented and discussed that are necessary to apply macrobenthos diversity in biological assessments.

Taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity of leeches (Hirudinea) and their suitability in biological assessment of environmental quality

“…Contrary to that, suggestions that using of higher taxa in accordance with the procedure of "taxonomic surrogacy" provide information valuable enough are even more numerous (Bournaud et al, 1996;Marshall et al, 2006). An extensive discussion of the pros and cons of both concepts presents Jones (2008) and Koperski (2011).…”

“…Treating species as being equal in spite of their functional divergence and phylogenetic distance seems to be an important weakness of traditional measures of taxonomic diversity (Schweiger et al, 2008) and the use of taxonomic diversity indices based on identification to a level higher than the species is prone to different errors (Koperski, 2010(Koperski, , 2011Šiling and Urbanič, 2016). Three groups of methods have been developed to solve these problems: taxonomic distinctness (e.g.…”

Determining vulnerability of stream communities to climate change at the landscape scale

“…Landeiro et al, 2011). Increasing taxonomic resolution in particular would significantly improve the application of monitoring data to climate change vulnerability assessments (Koperski, 2011). Increasing taxonomic resolution in particular would significantly improve the application of monitoring data to climate change vulnerability assessments (Koperski, 2011).…”

Environmental quality of a stream can be better predicted by phylogenetic than by taxonomic diversity

“…The advantages and disadvantages of different identification levels in biological assessment based on benthic organisms are still intensively debated (e.g. Bertrand et al, 2006;Jones, 2008;Koperski, 2011).…”

“…On the other hand, the use of TD indices based on identification to a level higher than the species is prone to different errors (Koperski, 2010(Koperski, , 2011Šiling and Urbanič, 2016). Two groups of methods have been developed to solve these problems: "functional diversity" based on the analysis of the biological traits of benthic animals (e.g.…”