Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Biologia, cilt.77, sa.5, ss.1317-1326, 2022 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
The present study aimed to develop a multimetric index as a biological indication method of water quality using benthic macroinvertebrates for Turkey. A total of 207 operational taxa units were identified from 26 sampling sites through the employment of the multi-habitat method. Water was simultaneously sampled for both in-situ measurements and laboratory analysis in order to obtain the data on water chemistry. Ineligible metrics were excluded from the calculation process together with box-whisker plots and Kruskal–Wallis test (p < 0.05), considering the degree of overlap in the quartile limits (1°-3°). Among ten candidate metrics, four were considered suitable to form a multimetric index through Spearman correlation analysis. The core metrics were standardized with the 3rd quartile to obtain the index value. The index responded to a set of environmental variables, and split the ecological conditions into four categories as high, moderate, poor, and bad for the study area. Our results indicate that the multimetric index of the Sakarya River (MMIS) is an effective biological monitoring tool employing macroinvertebrates for biological monitoring in Turkey.