Aparicio, E.; Alcaraz, C.; Rocaspana, R.; Pou-Rovira, Q.; García-Berthou, E. Adaptation of the European Fish Index (EFI+) to Include the Alien Fish Pressure. Fishes2024, 9, 13.
Aparicio, E.; Alcaraz, C.; Rocaspana, R.; Pou-Rovira, Q.; García-Berthou, E. Adaptation of the European Fish Index (EFI+) to Include the Alien Fish Pressure. Fishes 2024, 9, 13.
Aparicio, E.; Alcaraz, C.; Rocaspana, R.; Pou-Rovira, Q.; García-Berthou, E. Adaptation of the European Fish Index (EFI+) to Include the Alien Fish Pressure. Fishes2024, 9, 13.
Aparicio, E.; Alcaraz, C.; Rocaspana, R.; Pou-Rovira, Q.; García-Berthou, E. Adaptation of the European Fish Index (EFI+) to Include the Alien Fish Pressure. Fishes 2024, 9, 13.
Abstract
The European Fish Index EFI+ is the only fish-based multimetric index for the assessment of the ecological status of running waters validated and thus applicable across the European Union. Metrics of the index rely on several attributes of the species present in the fish assemblage, irrespective of their native/alien status. The abundance of alien fish, together with other anthropogenic impacts, is one of the most important threats to the conservation of native fish and ecosystem health and is also an indicator of degraded stream conditions. Therefore, to improve the performance and utility of the EFI+ in regions with high incidence of alien species, the EFI+ was adapted to include the alien fish pressure by averaging the two original metrics with a new metric that reflects the number of alien species as well as the proportional abundance of alien individuals. The application of the adapted index (A-EFI+) is illustrated with data from several Iberian Mediterranean basins and showed similar or stronger correlations than the original EFI+ with anthropogenic pressure (land-use variables) and with other regional fish indices. EFI+ has been invaluable to intercalibrate fish indices across Europe and A-EFI+ is similar but explicitly includes the alien pressure, thus helping to provide a more comprehensive assessment of ecosystem health and to communicate it to society.
Keywords
Ecological status; Index of biotic integrity; Non-native species; Water Framework Directive
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Aquatic Science
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
