Quantitative macroinvertebrate bioassessment in seasonally astatic aquatic habitats, Part II. Applying the method

• Published in: Environmental monitoring and assessment Vol. 196; no. 5; p. 465
• Main Authors: Rogers, D. Christopher, Baba, Barry
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.05.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Animals; Aquatic crustaceans; Aquatic habitats; Aquatic Organisms; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; biological assessment; Biological Monitoring - methods; Biomonitoring; California; Conservation of Natural Resources - methods; Conservation organizations; Crustaceans; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecology; Ecosystem; Ecotoxicology; Environment; environmental health; Environmental Management; Environmental Monitoring - methods; Environmental restoration; Habitats; Invertebrates; Macroinvertebrates; Monitoring/Environmental Analysis; Seasons; Shellfish; vernal pools; Wetlands; Zoobenthos; California; Vernal pool tadpole shrimp; Habitat monitoring; Vernal pool fairy shrimp; Endangered species; Vernal pools; Biological monitoring
• ISSN: 0167-6369; 1573-2959; 1573-2959
• DOI: 10.1007/s10661-024-12556-8

Seasonally astatic aquatic habitats are important ecologically, municipally, and agriculturally. Regulatory agencies and conservation organizations have developed various plans for protecting or constructing temporary wetlands, resulting in habitat monitoring requirements, particularly as relates to restoration and constructed habitats. Unfortunately, there has been no effort to develop a unified, consistent method for wetland biological monitoring. In Part I, we presented a quantifiable, replicable method for assessing seasonally astatic wetlands, which would allow for direct comparison between individual wetlands, wetland sites, and wetland types. Here in Part II, we apply the method and present the results from more than a decade of a data on two disparate sites that support California vernal pool habitats. These habitats include natural, restored, and constructed vernal pools. Our results demonstrate that the method we present yields reliable, statistically useful, and actionable data and provides a better method for assessing astatic wetland ecological health and the persistence of federally listed vernal pool crustaceans than other methods so far employed.