RT Journal Article
T1 Assessing the ecological status in species-poor systems: a fish-based index for Mediterranean Rivers (Guadiana River, SW Spain)
A1 Hermoso López, Virgilio
A1 Clavero Pineda, Miguel
A1 Blanco Garrido, Francisco
A1 Prenda Marín, José
AB The assessment of the ecological status of freshwater ecosystems is a key issue for manyinternational laws as the Water Framework Directive in light of the actual impoverished statusof such ecosystems. Different multimetric approaches have been successfully developed allaround the world in different freshwater environments. However multimetric indices aredifficult to apply in Mediterranean rivers basins, where freshwater fish communities featurevery low species richness per site and high number of endemics with generalist andopportunistic life strategies. A site-specific approach was followed to develop an adaptation ofthe multimetric concept in the Index of Community Integrity. The presence-absence of tennative freshwater fish species was modeled and used to assess the deviation of the observed andexpected community composition at reference condition. These deviations were transformedinto probabilities to belong to a reference site and species by species measures were thenintegrated in a final score. The use of presence-absence only data reduces the possible errorsassociated to incorrect estimations of species´ abundance and its seasonal changes. The indexwas sensitive to both habitat and biotic disturbances while irresponsible to natural sources ofvariation. To our concern, this is the first index specifically tested to be responsible to bioticperturbations, which traditionally have been forgotten pressures in Indices of Biotic Integrity.
PB Elsevier
SN 1470-160X
YR 2011
FD 2011-02-15
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10272/4382
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10272/4382
LA eng
NO HERMOSO LÓPEZ, V., CLAVERO PINEDA, M., BLANCO GARRIDO, F., PRENDA MARÍN, J. : "Assesing the ecological status in species-poor systems : a fishbased index for Mediterranean rivers (Guadiana River, SW Spain)". Ecological indicators. 2010, Vol. 10, n. 6, pags: 1152-1161. Elsevier. ISSN: 1470-160X.
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 2 jun 2026