Evaluating the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages using joint species distribution models
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Establishing an appropriate reference condition to assess biological integrity is challenging because human disturbance is ubiquitous. Because, few ecosystems are consistent with a minimally disturbed state, reference condition is often established using a suite of sites that are least-disturbed (i.e. best available given today's landscape). Unfortunately, some ecosystems are more disturbed than others, such that the amount of acceptable human disturbance used to define a least-disturbed state varies among reference sites. Further complications can arise when least-disturbed sites are spatially or temporally biased. My research focuses on using statistical modeling approaches to circumvent the need to identify least-disturbed reference sites and ultimately improve on biological assessment used for the National Aquatic Resource Surveys. This presentation describes research related to the potential response of macroinvertebrate assemblages to common anthropogenic disturbances and scenarios used to evaluate how these assemblages may change if disturbance was removed.