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Assessing freshwater fish sensitivity to different sources of perturbation in a Mediterranean basin
Author(s) -
Hermoso V.,
Clavero M.,
BlancoGarrido F.,
Prenda J.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
ecology of freshwater fish
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.667
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1600-0633
pISSN - 0906-6691
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0633.2008.00344.x
Subject(s) - principal component analysis , perturbation (astronomy) , environmental science , gradient analysis , ecology , drainage basin , sensitivity (control systems) , statistics , mathematics , biology , geography , physics , engineering , cartography , ordination , quantum mechanics , electronic engineering
– The accuracy of bioassessment programmes is highly limited by the precision of the systems used to derive sensitivity–tolerance values for the organisms used as indicators. We provide quantitative support to the objective evaluation of freshwater fish species sensitivity to different sources of disturbance, accounting for co‐variation issues not only between perturbations and natural gradients (especially river size), but also between different perturbations. With this aim, we performed two different principal component analyses: (i) on a general environmental matrix to obtain a perturbation gradient independent of river size effects and (ii) on human impairment‐related variables to extract independent synthetic perturbation gradients. Then, we checked each species responses to those gradients to assess their sensitivity–tolerance through an available‐used chi‐squared analysis in the first approach and through a t ‐test/ ancova analysis in the second one. In this way, we obtained sensitivity–tolerance which could be included in future bioassessment tools, enabling effective evaluations.