Interaction between the environmental conditions (relatively homogeneous withinĮcoregions) and country-level management and land-use decisions. The landscape configuration of socio-ecological land systems results from the

Paying closer attention to study designs, ecological mechanisms and metric development should further improve our understanding of anthropogenic impacts and better facilitate rehabilitation of degraded freshwater ecosystems, as well as aiding in the conservation of healthy freshwater ecosystems globally. MMIs could also benefit from increased attention to ecological mechanisms and metric development, to further improve our understanding of anthropogenic impacts as well as rehabilitation effects on freshwater ecosystems globally.

Specifically, our concerns focus on reference conditions sampling effort, methods, and season trophic guild definition metric comprehensiveness, options, screening and scoring and MMI validation. Therefore, in this review, we discuss eleven major concerns with the development and application (including logistical limitations) of multimetric indicators based on freshwater biota to encourage more rigorous and widely applicable (transferable) MMI use and implementation. However, the proliferation of MMIs globally has not always occurred through the application of rigorous study designs and monitoring protocols, nor have they always effectively incorporated functional metrics, stressor assessments, and statistical analyses. In Europe, where biological assemblages are mandated for assessing freshwater ecosystem health, many indices are multimetric. A key step in this advance has been the development of multimetric indices (MMIs) or indices of biotic integrity (IBIs) based on quantitative assessments of algae, macrophyte, macroinvertebrate, fish or riparian bird assemblages. In recent decades, assemblage-based assessments by ecologists, environmental scientists, and water quality agencies have been employed globally for determining the condition of, and threats to, freshwater ecosystems. Freshwater biotic data and the multiple biological indicators developed from them offer a much richer array of data for assessing the impacts of pollution controls than a limited set of physical or chemical measures. Freshwater biota are more comprehensive and direct indicators of biological impacts, and more meaningful to the public than water quality or physical habitat surrogates.

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