Use of biological monitoring tools beyond their country of origin: a case study of the South African Scoring System Version 5 (SASS5)

Autor: Bianca B. Nyamupingidza, Taurai Bere
Rok vydání: 2013
Předmět:
Zdroj: Hydrobiologia. 722:223-232
ISSN: 1573-5117
0018-8158
DOI: 10.1007/s10750-013-1702-7
Popis: Biological monitoring tools are largely lacking for many countries, resulting in adoption of tools developed from other countries/regions, but in many instances, their applicability to the new system has not been explicitly evaluated. The objective of the study was to test the applicability of the South African Scoring Systems Version 5 (SASS5) to urban streams in Zimbabwe. The study evaluated the relationship between water quality variables and SASS5 indices/metrics [(SASS and average score per taxon (ASPT)] and found high degree of concordance between water chemistry parameters and SASS5 metrics, indicating that both SASS and ASPT scores are sensitive to detect environmental changes. This result can be attributed to occurrence of ubiquitous macroinvertebrate taxa sharing similar environmental tolerances with those recorded for South African systems. The applicability of SASS5 metrics need to be tested across different geographical and climatic regions in the country (taking into consideration seasonal variations that are important drivers of benthic faunal assemblages in lotic systems) and disparities among the regions compared for the adoption of the index in the entire country. The SASS5 metrics can also be further strengthened by (a) taking into account the relative abundance of taxa and (b) also improving on its ability to reflect other forms of perturbations besides eutrophication and organic pollution such heavy metal pollution.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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