Biotic Index Tested for Ability to Assess Water Quality of Missouri Ozark Streams

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Abstract
The Biotic Index (BI), a numerical index that combines the pollution tolerance of benthic insects with estimates of community structure, effectively discriminated among differences in the macroinvertebrate assemblages of eight Missouri Ozark streams of differing water quality. The BI at a given site is affected by spatial and temporal differences in the benthic community but not by species that occur in only small numbers. Six kick‐net samples provided sufficient data for estimating an average BI value, and for detecting statistically significant differences in the values between two sites. Differences in the BI among sampling sites were supported by differences in the taxonomic composition of the benthic communities and were statistically related to stream water chemistry. The BI was more sensitive and less variable than diversity indices for discriminating differences in stream water quality.