Selected Archives of Volunteer Monitoring Listserv Discussions - Relating Biological Metrics to Stressors

Date: Sat, 08 Oct 2005 11:24:56 -0400
From: John Murphy <streamwatch@cstone.net>
Subject: [volmonitor] relating biological metrics to specific stressors

Colleagues-

Our stream monitoring program in central Virginia is looking into the feasibility of employing benthic data to indicate presence and effect intensity of specific stressors (e.g. sediment). Karr and others allude to biomonitoring's application in this vein, but I have not encountered a guidance document. We are aware of some of the general theoretical relationships between taxa and stressors (e.g.hydropsychidae and excess fine particulate organic matter), but, again, we are not aware of published literature we can pull off the shelf and use to guide an analysis. We'll be exploring the literature, but I thought it would also make sense to post the question here.

Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

Sincerely,

John Murphy

John Murphy, Director
StreamWatch
streamwatch@cstone.net
office: (434) 923-8642
cell: (434) 242-1145
www.streamwatch.org

Date: Sat, 08 Oct 2005 14:02:28 -0400
From: "J. Kelly Nolan, Capital Region Coordinator" <HBRW@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: RE: [volmonitor] relating biological metrics to specific stressors

Hello John- NYS DEC uses a community similarity method called Impact Source Determination (ISD) to determine the most likely stressor that may be occurring at a site. They have developed several models which help determine the most likely stressor that may be occurring at a site. One of the stressors is siltation. I now determine ISD for all my biomonitoring surveys.

The published paper is available to download as a pdf at this address:
http://jkn-cmm.home.att.net/isd.pdf

There is also a book titled Biological Response Signatures and the EPA has a written discussion on it at this web site:
http://www.epa.gov/bioindicators/html/brsig.html

You can also find the book at Amazon.com

I hope this helps and perhaps we can talk more about this at the macroinvertebrate workshop in February.

Kelly

Alice Mayio
Volunteer water monitoring
10/11/2005 10:15 <volmonitor@lists.epa.gov>

John,

EPA's Office of Science and Technology published a guidance document a few years ago, the Stressor Identification Guidance Document (EPA 822-B-00-025).

It's available on the web at http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/biocriteria/stressors/stressorid.html

(this page has a fact sheet and a link to the pdf file) and (if it seems to be what you need) you should also be able to order a hard copy from EPA's Water Resource Center at center.water-resouce@epa.gov.

This would appear to be what you're looking for.

Alice Mayio
USEPA (4503T)
1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20460
(202) 566-1184

Street Address for visitors/deliveries:
EPA West
1301 Constitution Avenue, NW
Room 7424B
Washington, DC 20004

Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 11:22:23 -0400
From: Toth.David@epamail.epa.gov
Subject: Re: [volmonitor] relating biological metrics to specific stressors

The document "Stressor Identification Guidance Document", 822/B-00/025
can also be ordered from www.epa.gov/nscep.

Below is the link to the USGS publication regarding aquatic
macroinvertebrates and nutrients.

In case the link doesn't work, the publication is "Nutrient Concentrations and Their Relations to the Biotic Integrity of Wadeable Streams in Wisconsin" by Dale M. Robertson1, David J. Graczyk, Paul J. Garrison, Lizhu Wang, Gina LaLiberte, and Roger Bannerman. USGS Publication 1772.