Aquatic Community Classification

A critical element in any assessment of biodiversity, but one that is often missing, is an analysis of aquatic habitat. A group of biologists from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, the Nature Conservancy, Middlebury College, and the University of Vermont undertook to construct a classification of communities of standing and running waters, using data on aquatic plant, fish, and macroinvertebrate assemblages. They then evaluated the quality of aquatic community occurrences in the biophysical regions of Vermont, and selected "best reference" (least impacted) examples of each of the community classes (see table below). Connections between these classes and underlying habitat parameters were explored with correspondence analysis, enabling analysts to attach physico-chemical descriptors (e.g., pH, acid neutralizing capacity, elevation, substrate, trophic level) to the biologically-defined classes.

Example of aquatic classification: lake types, classified by macrophyte assemblages.

The analysis led to the identification of 19 lakes and ponds and reaches of 52 streams and rivers around the state, as meriting special conservation attention. These exemplary aquatic sites were mapped and incorporated into the VBP analysis.

(Click image at right for a larger, 36kb map)