PARENT SESSION
Contributed Oral Session 5: Aquatic Ecology: System Heterogeneity
Monday, August 8, 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM, Meeting Room 515 A, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Variability of the macrophyte based methods in river assessment.
Szoszkiewicz, Krzysztof*,1, Staniszewski, Ryszard1, Zbierska, Janina1, Jusik, Szymon1, 1 Agricultural University of August Cieszkowski, Dept. of Ecology and Environmental Protection, Poznan, Poland
ABSTRACT- The development of the macrophyte based methods was observed when aquatic plants were included to the group of organisms utilised within the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) for freshwater monitoring. To test the usefulness of macrophytes for estimating the ecological status of rivers according to the WFD requirements, variability of the several plant based metrics was quantified. Studies based on replicate sampling experiments, which were carried out in Polish lowland rivers in 2003 and 2004, within the EU-STAR project. It was found, that some of the metrics, especially MTR and IBMR, can be used for organic pollution assessment. The diversity metrics do not correspond well with prior assessment of the ecological status of rivers. Among the estimated sources of variance the smallest role was indicated by the inter-surveyor factor and slightly stronger was the influence of temporal variation (years and seasons) and shading. The impact of habitat modification was the most important. Variances of best trophy metrics, due to the various sources of uncertainty are relatively low comparing with the total variance, suggesting, that these methods may have adequate sampling precision to be useful in assigning site to one of the five WFD related levels of ecological status.
Key words: biological monitoring, macrophytes, rivers, Water Framework Directive