An Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) for Fish Assemblages in the Littoral Zone of Great Lakes' Areas of Concern

Karr's Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) approach provides a biological measure of ecosystem health using a wide spectrum of metrics which can be extracted from fish catch data obtained using standardized methods. Extensive electrofishing surveys of littoral fish assemblages, conducted in three Great Lakes' Areas of Concern, provided the basis for developing a lacustrine IBI that was 12 metrics of three broad types: (i) species composition, (ii) trophic composition, and (iii) abundance and condition. In contrast with lotic IBIs where diversity and abundance metrics have mostly been used, several biomass metrics were adopted to accommodate the large size range of lentic fishes. The variability of repeated measures was low enough to allow valid testing of intertransect differences with three to five samples per transect. Comparisons among survey areas showed significant differences consistent with the varying levels of ecosystem degradation. Analyses of mean IBI values with measures of submerged vegetation density and cover by transect produced significant positive correlations. This IBI developed for the Great Lakes' littoral zone, both by design and by demonstrated correlations, integrates the effects of four main factors influencing fish assemblages and hence revealing ecosystem health: exotic fishes, water quality, physical habitat supply, and piscivore abundance.