Species - level indicators of reference conditions in Irish rivers

摘要

Identification of indicator species and species assemblages characterizing groups of sites is becoming a popular tool in ecological studies (Dufrene & Le-gendre 1997, Pearson et al. 1983, Paavola et al. 2003, Kati et al. 2003). Macroinvertebrates in rivers have been extensively used as indicators in water quality biomonitoring and assessment to derive a variety of biotic indices (Rosenberg & Resh 1993). In Ireland the EPA Quality Rating system is a biological water quality classification which relates diversity and relative abundance of key groups of macroinvertebrates within the benthic community to five basic water quality classes from Q5, indicating good quality, to Q1, indicating seriously polluted conditions (McGarrigle et al. 2002). Occurrence and abundances of several plecopteran and ephemeropteran taxa determine whether a site is classified as unpolluted or impacted. EU member states are required by the Water Framework Directive to identify a range of type-specific biological reference conditions and to monitor a selection of sites demonstrating high ecological quality conditions for each waterbody type. In this study, extensive collections of macroinvertebrates were taken from a wide range of rivers in Ireland to preliminarily test and identify indicator species of reference conditions and, therefore, potentially contribute to the needs of the Water Framework Directive.