Benethic Invertebrate Community Monitoring and Indicator Development for the Barnegat Bay-Little Egg Harbor Estuary
Date
2017-06-21
Date Removed
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Trenton, N.J. : New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
Abstract
The possibility of using benthic macroinvertebrates as indicators of water quality has been
recognized for some time. For example, Hutchinson traced the origin and meaning of the term eutrophication (Hutchinson, 1973). In its earliest application to the trophic status and productivity of
lakes, the species diversity of the bottom fauna, whether or not they could tolerate low oxygen conditions, and the organic content of sediment were all included in classification of lakes as oligotrophic or eutrophic. The potential has been difficult to realize in estuarine and coastal habitats, however, because macroinvertebrates respond to many environmental variables (e.g., temperature,
salinity, dissolved oxygen) that can change quickly over space and time in these environments. Data collected over three years in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey, were used to explore if a straightforward
relationship could be found between water quality and benthic macroinvertebrates (Taghon et al., 2015). The proportion of the total abundance consisting of those species most sensitive to nutrient
pollution was used as the response variable. Exploratory data analysis identified summertime water
total nitrogen concentration as the best, linearly correlated (negatively) variable, accounting for 84% of the variability in the proportion of sensitive species. Other potential variables (for example, salinity,
chlorophyll-a, dissolved oxygen concentration) did not meet the assumptions of linear regression models.
This report includes a detailed analysis of the model. This report also includes the results of field sampling conducted in 2016. These samples were used to evaluate if the linear model could apply
to “new” data that were not included in model development.
Description
Keywords
New Jersey, Invertebrates - New Jersey - Barnegat Bay, Benthos - New Jersey - Barnegat Bay, Benthic ecology - New Jersey - Barnegat Bay