A biosurvey, or a biological survey, is a scientific study of

organism An organism is any life, living thing that functions as an individual. Such a definition raises more problems than it solves, not least because the concept of an individual is also difficult. Many criteria, few of them widely accepted, have be ...

s to assess the condition of an

ecological Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely re ...

resource, such as a water body.

Overview

Biosurveys are used by government agencies responsible for management of public lands, environmental planning and/or environmental

regulation Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...

to assess ecological resources, such as

river A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a strea ...

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

s and

wetland A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

s. They involve collection and analysis of animal and/or plant samples which serve as

bioindicator A bioindicator is any species (an indicator species) or group of species whose function, population, or status can reveal the qualitative status of the environment. The most common indicator species are animals. For example, copepods and other sma ...

s. The studies may be conducted by professional scientists or volunteer organizations. They are conducted according to published procedures to ensure consistency in data collection and analysis, and to compare findings to established metrics. Biosurveys typically use metrics such as

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

composition and richness (e.g. number of species, extent of pollution-tolerant species), and ecological factors (number of individuals, proportion of

predator Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common List of feeding behaviours, feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation ...

s, presence of disease). Biosurveys may identify

pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause harm. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the component ...

problems that are difficult or expensive to detect using chemical testing procedures. A biosurvey may be used to generate an index of biological integrity (IBI), a scoring system for an ecological resource.

Water resource biosurveys

Protocols for conducting biosurveys of water resources have been published by state government agencies and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Agencies use these protocols to implement the

Clean Water Act The Clean Water Act (CWA) is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Its objective is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters; recognizing the primary respo ...

. Similar protocols have been published by volunteer organizations.Izaak Walton League of America. Gaithersburg, M
"Biological Stream Monitoring."
Accessed December 21, 2008.

References

External links

Biological Assessment of Water Quality
– US EPA
Guide to Aquatic Invertebrates - WV Save Our Streams Program
*Online biomonitoring of water quality by a permanent record of bivalve molluscs' behavior and physiology (biological rhythms, growth rate, spawning, early warning), 24/7, worldwide: th
MolluSCAN ''eye''
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161113173444/http://molluscan-eye.epoc.u-bordeaux1.fr/index.php?rubrique=accueil&lang=en , date=2016-11-13 project Aquatic ecology Bioindicators Environmental science Measurement of biodiversity Water pollution

Overview

Water resource biosurveys

See also

References

External links