Analysis of 13,312 benthic invertebrate samples from German streams reveals minor deviations in ecological status class between abundance and presence/absence data.

ABSTRACT: Benthic invertebrates are the most commonly used organisms used to assess ecological status as required by the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). For WFD-compliant assessments, benthic invertebrate communities are sampled, identified and counted. Taxa × abundance matrices are used to calculate indices and the resulting scores are compared to reference values to determine the ecological status class. DNA-based tools, such as DNA metabarcoding, provide a new and precise method for species identification but cannot deliver robust abundance data. To evaluate the applicability of DNA-based tools to ecological status assessment, we evaluated whether the results derived from presence/absence data are comparable to those derived from abundance data. We analysed benthic invertebrate community data

SUBMITTER: Buchner D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6927632 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature