Premium
Electrofishing Distance Needed to Estimate Consistent Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) Scores in Raftable Oregon Rivers
Author(s) -
Hughes Robert M.,
Herlihy Alan T.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
transactions of the american fisheries society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.696
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1548-8659
pISSN - 0002-8487
DOI - 10.1577/t05-312.1
Subject(s) - electrofishing , index of biological integrity , sampling (signal processing) , environmental science , fish <actinopterygii> , habitat , ecology , index (typography) , oversampling , hydrology (agriculture) , statistics , fishery , biology , mathematics , geology , computer science , geotechnical engineering , filter (signal processing) , computer vision , computer network , bandwidth (computing) , world wide web
An important issue surrounding assessment of riverine fish assemblages is the minimum amount of sampling distance needed to adequately determine biotic condition. Determining adequate sampling distance is important because sampling distance affects estimates of fish assemblage condition at both local and regional scales, and oversampling is costly. We examined the sampling distance question by sampling 45 raftable Oregon river reaches for an entire day and then assessing the minimum distance needed to obtain index of biotic integrity (IBI) scores in those reaches that varied by less than 10% from the 1‐d samples. An electrofishing raft was used to collect fish, and physical and chemical habitats were sampled to aid in reach description. We found that a sampling distance equal to 50 times the mean wetted channel width, or a catch of more than 120 individuals, produced IBI scores that met our criteria.