Benthic habitat quality assessment based on biological indices in Xiaoqing River estuary and its adjacent sea of Laizhou Bay, China

Abstract

Based on the macrofauna data (2008-2011) in Xiaoqing River estuary and its adjacent sea, Laizhou Bay of Bohai Sea, China, the AZTI Marine Biotic Index (AMBI) and Multivariate AMBI (M-AMBI) were used for benthic habitat quality (BHQ) assessment. Results showed that BHQ presented an obvious trend of improvement along the direction of stream channel and river mouth, and in the coastal areas. AMBI and M-AMBI were significantly related to environmental pressure gradient data. Therefore, the two indices can well indicate BHQ in the studied area. However, there were significant differences between results of the two indices. In the cases of low taxa number and high abundance of single species, AMBI might overestimate BHQ. We thus adjusted its thresholds to solve this problem. And M-AMBI might overestimate BHQ when benthic assemblage was dominated by the opportunistic species. Then we could raise the weight of AMBI in the calculation of M-AMBI to handle the problem.