Striving for consistency in a national lake assessment: Defining reference status and littoral macroinvertebrate condition in lakes across the conterminous United States
Benthic macroinvertebrates are widely used for assessing lotic ecosystems, however, their use in assessing lake condition has been more limited—especially at large, continental extents. We used data collected during the U.S. EPA’s National Lake Assessment between 2007–2022 to develop and validate a...
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Elsevier
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Ecological Indicators |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X24014493 |
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| author | Richard M. Mitchell Alan T. Herlihy Robert M. Hughes |
| author_facet | Richard M. Mitchell Alan T. Herlihy Robert M. Hughes |
| author_sort | Richard M. Mitchell |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Benthic macroinvertebrates are widely used for assessing lotic ecosystems, however, their use in assessing lake condition has been more limited—especially at large, continental extents. We used data collected during the U.S. EPA’s National Lake Assessment between 2007–2022 to develop and validate a national macroinvertebrate multi-metric index (MMI) of lake condition across the conterminous U.S. As part of that process, we identified least-disturbed ecoregional reference lakes by filtering all sampled lakes by using specific physical, chemical, and disturbance variables to remove disturbed lakes. To account for natural variability, different criteria values were used for each of the nine national ecoregions. This allowed for a regionally explicit and reproducible definitions of lake reference condition for current and future analyses. Because of insufficient reference lake numbers in some of the nine ecoregions, macroinvertebrate MMI development was done independently for each of five aggregate national ecoregions. All 126 candidate macroinvertebrate metrics were screened for reproducibility, responsiveness, and redundancy to identify the best metric in each of six group types: composition, diversity, feeding group, habit, richness, and pollution tolerance for each ecoregion. The six chosen metrics were summed to calculate the MMI. Condition benchmarks (good/fair/poor) for assessing biological condition were defined for each ecoregion based on reference lake MMI percentiles. Using these five MMIs with the 2022 survey data, an estimated 44% of the lakes were in good condition, whereas 27% were in poor condition. Our MMIs offer managers valuable tools for assessing lakes at large ecoregional and continental extents. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-1fb4621f7edd4cdab478760e722441fe |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1470-160X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
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| series | Ecological Indicators |
| spelling | doaj-art-1fb4621f7edd4cdab478760e722441fe2025-01-31T05:10:24ZengElsevierEcological Indicators1470-160X2025-01-01170112992Striving for consistency in a national lake assessment: Defining reference status and littoral macroinvertebrate condition in lakes across the conterminous United StatesRichard M. Mitchell0Alan T. Herlihy1Robert M. Hughes2United States Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Water, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, MC 4502T, Washington, DC 20460, USA; Corresponding author.Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USADepartment of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA; Amnis Opes Institute, 2895 SE Glenn, Corvallis, OR 97333, USABenthic macroinvertebrates are widely used for assessing lotic ecosystems, however, their use in assessing lake condition has been more limited—especially at large, continental extents. We used data collected during the U.S. EPA’s National Lake Assessment between 2007–2022 to develop and validate a national macroinvertebrate multi-metric index (MMI) of lake condition across the conterminous U.S. As part of that process, we identified least-disturbed ecoregional reference lakes by filtering all sampled lakes by using specific physical, chemical, and disturbance variables to remove disturbed lakes. To account for natural variability, different criteria values were used for each of the nine national ecoregions. This allowed for a regionally explicit and reproducible definitions of lake reference condition for current and future analyses. Because of insufficient reference lake numbers in some of the nine ecoregions, macroinvertebrate MMI development was done independently for each of five aggregate national ecoregions. All 126 candidate macroinvertebrate metrics were screened for reproducibility, responsiveness, and redundancy to identify the best metric in each of six group types: composition, diversity, feeding group, habit, richness, and pollution tolerance for each ecoregion. The six chosen metrics were summed to calculate the MMI. Condition benchmarks (good/fair/poor) for assessing biological condition were defined for each ecoregion based on reference lake MMI percentiles. Using these five MMIs with the 2022 survey data, an estimated 44% of the lakes were in good condition, whereas 27% were in poor condition. Our MMIs offer managers valuable tools for assessing lakes at large ecoregional and continental extents.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X24014493 |
| spellingShingle | Richard M. Mitchell Alan T. Herlihy Robert M. Hughes Striving for consistency in a national lake assessment: Defining reference status and littoral macroinvertebrate condition in lakes across the conterminous United States Ecological Indicators |
| title | Striving for consistency in a national lake assessment: Defining reference status and littoral macroinvertebrate condition in lakes across the conterminous United States |
| title_full | Striving for consistency in a national lake assessment: Defining reference status and littoral macroinvertebrate condition in lakes across the conterminous United States |
| title_fullStr | Striving for consistency in a national lake assessment: Defining reference status and littoral macroinvertebrate condition in lakes across the conterminous United States |
| title_full_unstemmed | Striving for consistency in a national lake assessment: Defining reference status and littoral macroinvertebrate condition in lakes across the conterminous United States |
| title_short | Striving for consistency in a national lake assessment: Defining reference status and littoral macroinvertebrate condition in lakes across the conterminous United States |
| title_sort | striving for consistency in a national lake assessment defining reference status and littoral macroinvertebrate condition in lakes across the conterminous united states |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X24014493 |
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