THE XERCES SOCIETY FOR INVERTEBRATE CONSERVATION

Aquatic Invertebrates in Pacific Northwest Freshwater Wetlands
An Identification Guide and Educational Resource

Designing your study

Websites
Books and book chapters
Journal articles
Literature reviews
Databases
Government documents

Websites
The EPA's Biological Assessment of Wetlands Work Group (BAWWG)

A page of EPA's publications on wetland bioassessment

Books and book chapters
Adamus PR. 1992. Choices in Monitoring Wetlands. pp. 571-592. In McKenzie DH, DE Hyatt, VJ McDonald (eds). Ecological Indicators. Elsevier Applied Science, New York 1992.

Batzer DP, RB Rader, and SA Wissinger (eds). 1999. Invertebrates in Freshwater Wetlands of North America: Ecology and Mangement. New York: John Wiley.

Cummins KW and RW Merritt. 2001. Application of Invertebrate Functional groups to Wetland Ecosystem Function and Biomonitoring. In RB Rader, DP Batzer, and SA Wissinger (eds.) Bioassessment and Mangement of North American Freshwater Wetlands. 2001 John Wiley & Sons.

Mitsch WJ (ed). 1994. Global Wetlands: Old World and New. Elsevier Science , New York, NY.

Murphy KJ, E Castella, B Clement, JM Hills, P Obrdlik, ID Pulford, E Schneider, and MCD Speight. 1994. Biotic indicators of riverine wetland ecosystem functioning. In Global Wetlands: Old World and New. WJ Mitsch (ed) Elsevier Science BV.

Murkin HR. 1989. The basis for food chains in prairie wetlands. In Northern Prairie Wetlands, ed. AG van der Valk, pp. 316-38. Ames: Iowa State Univ. Press.

O’Connell, MJ. 2003. Detecting, measuring and reversing changes in wetlands. Wetlands Ecology and Management. 11:397-401.

Rader RB, DP Batzer and SA Wissinger [eds.], Bioassessment and Management of North American Freshwater Wetlands, John Wiley & Sons.

Rader, RB and DK Shiozawa. 2001. General Principles of Establishing a bioassessment program. In RB Rader, DP Batzer and SA Wissinger (eds). Bioassessment and Management of North American Freshwater Wetlands. 2001 John Wiley & Sons.

Journal articles
Courtemanch DL. 1996. Commentary on the subsampling procedures used for rapid bioassessments. Journal of the North American Bentholological Society 15(3):381-385.

Davis J, P Horwitz, R Norris, B Chessman, M McGuire, and B Sommer. 2006. Are river bioassessment methods using macroinvertebrates applicable to wetlands? Hydrobiologia

Karr JR.1991. Biotic integrity: a long-neglected aspect of water resource management. Ecological Applications 1:66-84.

Stevenson RJ and FR Hauer. 2002. Integrating Hydrogeomorphic and Index of Biotic Integrity approaches for environmental assessment of wetlands. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 21(3):502-513.

Literature Reviews
Indicators for Monitoring Biological Integrity of Inland, Freshwater Wetlands: A Survey of North American Technical Literature (1990-2000) (PDF, 708KB) - This is a summary of collected data on the biological impact of wetland alterations; it contains a chapter on invertebrates.

Impacts on Quality of Inland Wetlands of the United States: A Survey of Indicators, Techniques, and Applications of Community Level Biomonitoring Data – This document reviews literature on the responses of wetland organisms to environmental stressors before 1990.

Bioindicators for Assessing Ecological Integrity of Prairie Wetlands – This document reviews literature prior to 1996 on how organisms in Prairie wetlands respond to various environmental stressors.

VanDam RA, C Camilleri, CM Finlayson. The potential of rapid assessment techniques as early warning indicators of wetland degradation: a review.  Wetland Protection and Management, Environmental Research Institute of the Supervising Scientist. (ERISS), Locked Bag 2, Jabiru, Northern Territory, 0886 Australia.

Databases
National Database of Wetland Invertebrate Sensitivities to Enrichment and Hydrologic Alteration - (ZIP-398KB, a compressed file). This database is cross-referenced to an annotated bibliography. First download the compressed file, uncompress it, then import it into EXCEL or another database application. It can then be sorted or searched. This database lists wetland invertebrate species or taxa and, when available, their sensitivity to various wetland stressors, the type of wetland and a reference for the study.

Government documents
Methods for Evaluating Wetland Condition - A comprehensive set of modules created by the EPA to provide information on developing a wetland biological assessment program.

Wetland Bioassessment Fact Sheets - These EPA fact sheets are a good place to start. They provide a basic introduction to wetland bioassessment.

Various EPA publications on Biological Indicators, Assessment, and Criteria - this page of EPA's website includes links to publications on biological assessment of various aquatic ecosystems.