Updated sensitivity values of soft sediment fauna
- Year of publication
- 2019
- Contributors
- Gunhild Borgersen, Hilde Cecilie Trannum, Hege Gundersen, Jens Vedal
Jens Vedal
Hege Gundersen
Gunhild Borgersen
Summary
The sensitivity values for Norwegian species of soft sediment fauna for the two sensitivity indices ISI and NSI were updated based on a larger and better geographically covered data set compared to the previous revision in 2012. The result was a species list with 588 taxa with new sensitivity values. Based on the new species sensitivity values, ISI2018 and NSI2018 were calculated, and new reference values for the indices were calculated and the class boundaries for ISI and NSI adjusted to adapt to the new sensitivity values. Issues related to climate impact and the effect of environmental pollutants on soft sediment fauna are discussed, and several concrete proposals are suggested to make monitoring more climate-relevant. Various methods for detecting effects of environmental pollutants on soft sediment fauna are described.