Predicting diatom communities at the genus level for the rapid biological assessment of rivers

Abstract

Summary 1. Diatoms were sampled in the spring of 1994 and the autumn of 1995 at 137 pristine or near‐pristine reference sites on large and small streams at various altitudes in eastern New South Wales and Victoria. Scrapings were taken from five firm substrata across a range of microhabitat conditions at each site on each occasion. For each substratum, 100 valves were identified to genus level. 2. Multivariate statistical models were constructed to predict the probability of occurrence of each genus at a given site under near‐pristine conditions on the basis of physical features of the site that are not affected by human activity. Model predictions were compared with the flora observed at the reference sites and at 55 test sites affected by varying degrees of human disturbance. 3. Test sites were characterized more by the presence of genera not predicted by the model than by the absence of predicted genera. The degree of departure from model predictions was related mainly to increasing alkalinity, electrical conductivity, hardness and pH of river water. We therefore conclude that the main effect of human activity on the composition of diatom communities in the rivers of coastal south‐eastern Australia has been to increase genus richness through enrichment with alkaline salts. 4. The models did not perform as well as similar models applied to river macroinvertebrates at the family level, perhaps because of greater temporal variability in diatom communities and differences in the environmental variables to which diatoms and macroinvertebrates respond. Means of improving the current models are discussed.

Life-forms, cell-sizes and ecological guilds of diatoms in European rivers

“…Diatoms are now worldwide used to assess rivers ecological quality (e.g. Coste et al, 1991;Lobo et al, 1995;Kelly et al, 1998;Chessman et al, 1999;Rimet, 2012) beside macroinvertebrates, fish, phytoplankton and macrophytes. Most of these indices are based on the formula of Zelinka and Marvan (1961).…”

Combining Logistic Models with Multivariate Methods for the Rapid Biological Assessment of Rivers Using Macroinvertebrates

“…The method presented here intends to be directed to a rapid but precise assessment of water-quality impairments, in a way similar to that of Chessman et al (1999). In the present approach we described the basis for classifying the degree of disturbance for a high ecological range of sites.…”

Predicting biological parameters of estuarine benthic communities using models based on environmental data

“…The main criticisms about using models to predict biological parameters in biological communities based on environmental data are based on the absence of clear cause-effect relationship, difficulty in defining clear reference sites and lack of generality (Calow, 1992;Chessman et al, 1999). The empirical rather than causative nature of predictive models does not prevent it from being used in this study since the emphasis in using predictive models was more for data exploration and hypothesis generation than for testing the significance of relations between biological and environmental variables.…”

“…The development of predictive models for marine and particularly estuarine soft-bottom communities has received little attention, although there is an increasing need for this type of models (Elliott, 1994;Allen, 1999a). These models can be useful in environmental monitoring and management studies since they can either be used to predict species and parameters for unknown areas or to identify departures of the observed biota from that predicted by the models for unpolluted areas (Clarke et al, 1996;Chessman, 1999). The first attempt to use predictive models for aquatic communities was in England in the early 80s with the development of the RIVPACS (River InVertebrate Prediction and Classification System) (Wright et al, 1989).…”