Wednesday, June 6, 2007 - 5:00 PM
318

A protocol for biomonitoring Andean streams (C.E.R.A.)

Narcís Prat, Prof., Blanca Ríos, and Raul Acosta. Ecologia, University of Barcelona, Diagonal, 645, Barcelona, 08960, Spain

A Rapid Bioassessment Protocol for Andean rivers (over 2000 m a.s.l. from north of Venezuela until south of Bolivia) using aquatic macroinvertebrates, the physical habitat and the Riparian habitat is presented. In the protocol we include the Andean Biotic Index (Rios B. et al., submitted), that was built based on the BMWP method, after a detailed investigation (on gray and published information) about the altitudinal distribution of macroinvertebrate families and their tolerance to pollution in Andean areas. The regions located over 4000 m.a.s.l. present a benthic community with a poor generic diversity, and therefore values of boundaries between classes of quality have been adapted to reflect this fact. For the riparian zone and the in-stream habitat we adapt the QBR and IHF indexes currently used in Spain. In order to define reference conditions we built a simple score method assigning 1, 3 or 5 points (similarly of IBI methodology) to 24 attributes of the river basin, river hydrology and reach and site characteristics. The method takes in consideration the altitudinal variation of Andean rivers. The system has been tested in two basins, Rio San Pedro from Ecuador (close to Quito) and river Cañete (in the south of Peru).


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