Enhance Regional-Scale Assessments by Identifying Specific Taxa that Decrease or Increase in Response to Land Use

The predictive models used in O/E assessments can be used to quantify what taxa are decreasing and increasing in frequency of occurrence. This information can help us understand what individual taxa may be most susceptible or responsive to human activities in general. Both sensitive, native taxa as well as tolerant, invasive taxa will require different, specifically tailored conservation actions. Information on the taxa composition at multiple sites can also be used to estimate aspects of regional beta diversity – i.e., how similar different sites are in taxonomic composition. Such measures may be especially useful in assessing the degree to which individual sites within a region may be becoming more or less homogenous in response to human-caused alteration of waterways and their surrounding landscapes. We will use Lotic AIM survey data to generate these types of regional expressions of ecological condition in addition to providing site-specific assessments.