Influence of seasonal variability in benthic invertebrate community structure on the use of biotic indices to assess the ecological status of a Portuguese estuary

Chainho, Paula; Costa, José Lino; Chaves, Maria Manuela; Dauer, Daniel M.; Costa, M. J.

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2007.06.009

Cited by 94 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Considering that Santo André lagoon is included in the Portuguese Network of Protected Areas since 2000, and that the main human pressures have been reduced, an improvement or at least the maintenance of the benthic condition would be expected in 2010 rather than the observed decrease. Similarly to what was found by Chainho et al (2007) in the Mondego estuary, it seems that Margalef and ShannoneWiener indices respond better to the environmental changes in the lagoon than AMBI. On the other hand, GLM reveals that precipitation was the factor that better explained the AMBI trend, with rainy years showing lower benthic condition.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…Although methods to assess quality using benthic communities have already been established in the scope of the WFD, the choice of indices and reference conditions considering the variety of coastal and transitional ecosystems in Europe have been discussed by several authors (Quintino et al, 2006;Chainho et al, 2007;Dauvin, 2007;Pinto et al, 2009;Borja et al, 2011). These authors recognize that a single benthic index should be applied carefully, attending to different sensitivity of species to anthropogenic disturbance, and acknowledge that a benthic index is unlikely to be universally applicable, since organisms are not equally sensitive to natural and anthropogenic disturbance and thus are likely to respond differently to different types of disturbance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Benthic communities are one of the biological elements considered by the WFD to assess ecological quality status, since they have long been used to assess quality of aquatic ecosystems (Pearson and Rosenberg, 1978;Hilly et al, 1986;Dauer, 1993;Weisberg et al, 1997;Borja et al, 2003;Chainho et al, 2007). However, their response to the highly variable and unpredictable conditions of transitional systems, including estuaries and lagoons, has been indicated as a major problem since it is difficult to separate between the effects of natural and anthropogenic stress (Elliott and Quintino, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Inter-annual variations of macrobenthic communities over three decades in a land-locked coastal lagoon (Santo André, SW Portugal)

Correia

Costa

Chainho

et al. 2012

Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science

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Keywords: macrobenthic communities land-locked coastal lagoon ecological status long-term changes water framework directive a b s t r a c t Santo André is an enclosed brackish water coastal lagoon with temporary connections to the sea by a man-made channel. The exchange and mixture of saltwater and freshwater is irregular and the lagoon may show daily and seasonal fluctuations, but also long-term variation. Different benthic communities may be present along the annual cycle according to the magnitude of episodic freshwater and sea water inputs.In the last 30 years the communication with the sea has followed different regimes from year to year and, as a consequence, macrobenthic communities, assessed several times during the period before the opening to the sea, shifted from freshwater to marine affinities. Major differences were found between 1979 and 2010, with a preponderance of species with marine affinity, and the 1980s in which the organisms with freshwater affinity prevailed. Benthic communities are frequently used to assess aquatic environmental condition. Metrics used in the indices currently under discussion to assess ecological status of aquatic ecosystems within the scope of European Water Framework Directive were applied to Santo André data and the applicability of these metrics to assess quality in this coastal land-locked lagoon was discussed.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Inter-annual variations of macrobenthic communities over three decades in a land-locked coastal lagoon (Santo André, SW Portugal)

Correia

Costa

Chainho

et al. 2012

Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science

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“…Station S3 was the station nearest to the Yellow River estuary, which was only 20.62 km away. It is well known that estuaries are particularly challenging to study because of strong spatial, seasonal and interannual variations of environmental characteristics that influence macrobenthic community [27]. According to the present study, the numbers of species were very low at station S3 (7,12, and 1 in spring, summer, and autumn, respectively.…”

Section: Characteristics Of Macrobenthos In Laizhou Baysupporting

confidence: 42%

Status of Macrobenthic Community and Its Relationships to Trace Metals and Natural Sediment Characteristics

Zhang

Guan

et al. 2013

CLEAN Soil Air Water

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Laizhou Bay, located in the northwest of Shandong Peninsula, has complex transitional environments between terrestrial and marine ecosystems. In the present study, a total of 122, 131, and 139 species were collected in spring, summer, and autumn 2011, respectively. Species constitutions of macrobenthos were grouped into four phyla, of which annelida were the most abundant phylum, the average biomass proportion of echinodermata was the lowest, and the proportion of important species for mollusca was the highest. The structure of the macrobenthic community showed significant differences between sites, and greater divergence was observed between the third site (S03) and other stations. The ABC plots showed that the biomass curve lay below the abundance curve, and the W-statistic value was negative. The result of the BOPA index showed that two stations had moderate ecological status in spring and that there were two heavily polluted sites and one moderately polluted site in summer. The BIO-ENV analyses indicated that the grain-size fractions together with trace metals (Hg, Pb, Zn, Cu, and Cr) could be considered as the major environmental variables influencing the macrobenthic patterns. The results together demonstrated that the macrobenthic communities in Laizhou Bay were negatively affected, perhaps by the tremendous impact of heavy metals in the sediments.

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“…Several biotic indices are being tested, modified and discussed for different coastal or transitional waters, based on one or more of the ES compartments of the ecosystem. The results obtained are at times contradictory (Gamito, 2008a), with indices showing different discriminating power (Chainho et al 2007;Dauvin et al 2007;Pranovi et al 2007;Munari and Mistri, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Feeding diversity in macroinvertebrate communities: A contribution to estimate the ecological status in shallow waters

Gamito

Furtado

2009

Ecological Indicators

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The feeding diversity of subtidal samples of macroinvertebrates from Ria Formosa was estimated with Shannon Wiener information index and complementary evenness. The results were compared with other commonly used methodologies under the European water framework directive, such as diversity indices, AMBI and ITI.Assuming that in a healthy environment all feeding groups are present, and that no group clearly dominates, the feeding diversity is expected to be maximal and the evenness feeding diversity will be close to 1. In degraded environments some feeding groups might be absent or having low relative abundance, and generally with one or two groups dominating the community. In this way the evenness feeding diversity index would measure deviations from expected values due to a degradation of the environment. Although confirmation of this approach needs to be tested in other shallow waters, the results obtained show interesting features.To each of the 297 species belonging to the Ria Formosa data matrix a feeding group was assigned, among six groups: surface deposit feeders, sub surface deposit feeders, herbivores, suspension feeders and suspension/deposit feeders (species which have the two feeding modes depending on food availability). The carnivorous, parasites, omnivorous and scavengers were all grouped together, forming the sixth group. Most of the stations of Ria Formosa showed high feeding diversity, which could correspond to a good or high ecological status (ES) except at one location, that occasionally showed low feeding diversity. This poor condition was essentially due to low water renewal and extreme environmental variation of some parameters, such as salinity. At some locations an intermediate feeding diversity was observed mainly due to natural accumulation of organic matter. Other commonly used indices also point out to the same tendencies. 2We propose the evenness feeding diversity estimate approach as a practical and apparently robust method to estimate the ES of shallow waters, which can be used together with other common indicators.This approach has also the advantage of showing low sensibility to small samples and to low taxonomic identification effort.

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Influence of seasonal variability in benthic invertebrate community structure on the use of biotic indices to assess the ecological status of a Portuguese estuary

Cited by 94 publications

References 40 publications

Inter-annual variations of macrobenthic communities over three decades in a land-locked coastal lagoon (Santo André, SW Portugal)

Inter-annual variations of macrobenthic communities over three decades in a land-locked coastal lagoon (Santo André, SW Portugal)

Status of Macrobenthic Community and Its Relationships to Trace Metals and Natural Sediment Characteristics

Feeding diversity in macroinvertebrate communities: A contribution to estimate the ecological status in shallow waters

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