Sensitivity of zooplankton for regional lake monitoring

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Abstract
We present a general method for evaluating and selecting indicators for regional monitoring based on an analysis of the relative magnitude of spatial and temporal components of variation. As part of a pilot survey of 355 lakes in the northeastern U.S.A., we sampled zooplankton assemblages and evaluated candidate indicators for their components of variance. Indicators with high sensitivity for status estimation show strong lake-to-lake differences as defined by the ratio of the spatial component of variance divided by the remaining components. Sensitivity generally increased within spatial partitions of the larger Northeast region. Calanoid abundance indicators showed the highest sensitivity but only within the Adirondack Mountains and coastal/urban zone and had low sensitivity in region-wide estimates. Rotifer, cyclopoid copepod, and cladoceran abundances showed low sensitivity irrespective of subregions. Richness indicators also showed low sensitivity across subregions. We conclude that sensitivity can be increased for many zooplankton indicators with increased revisit sampling and with refinement of spatial boundaries. Our results also show a good correspondence within abundance indicators between first and second visits within a year. Hence, the single visit protocol of the sampling design provides a reasonable snapshot of the general structure of a lake's zooplankton assemblage.

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