Evaluating macrophytes as indicators of anthropogenic pressures in rivers in Ireland
Date
2021-02-10
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Springer
Abstract
The ability of macrophytes to indicate
pressures in rivers was assessed by comparing metrics
for nitrate (NO3), ammonia (NH4), soluble reactive
phosphorus (SRP), dissolved oxygen saturation (DO),
pH (PH) and siltation (SUBS) with direct estimates of
the pressures at 810 sites in the Republic of Ireland,
supplemented with General Linear Models (GLMs).
The bivariate and rank correlation coefficients using
the full data range and the first and fourth quartiles of
the river pressures varied between 0.22 and - 0.39 for
NO3 and DO; they were smaller or not significant for
the other four metrics. The GLMs provided evidence
for an independent association between NO3 and the
nitrate concentration and SUBS and ammonia,
indicating some specificity for these metrics. Discriminating
sites in the first and fourth quartiles produced
Type II errors between 37 (PH) and 69% (NH4), with a
mean of 50. As the pressure-impact relationships are
not precise enough (low correlation coefficients) that
evidence from a single macrophyte metric is reliable,
combining the metric with evidence from other
biological groups at one site or from three or more
sites may be the most useful approach.
Description
Publication history: Accepted - 6 January 2021; Published online - 10 February 2021.
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Article
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Keywords
WFD, Macrophytes, Rivers, Metrics, Pressures, Impacts
Citation
Bucior, A., Rippey, B., McElarney, Y. and Douglas, R. (2021) ‘Evaluating macrophytes as indicators of anthropogenic pressures in rivers in Ireland’, Hydrobiologia. Springer Science and Business Media LLC. doi:10.1007/s10750-021-04516-x