| The Wetland Condition Index (WCI) provided a quantitative measure of the biological integrity of isolated forested wetlands in Florida. Environmental parameters and community composition of the diatom, macrophyte, and macroinvertebrate assemblages were sampled in 118 isolated forested wetlands throughout Florida to answer the overall question: can changes in the biotic components of pondcypress wetlands (such as the community composition of the diatom, macrophyte, and macroinvertebrate assemblages) be related to changes in development intensity in the landscape immediately adjacent to and surrounding them. While richness, evenness, and diversity measures were not sensitive to changes in landscape development intensity, biological indicators along with physical and chemical parameters were useful in defining biological integrity.; Differences in diatom, macrophyte, and macroinvertebrate community composition were explored in nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMS) ordinations. Water-column pH was correlated with the community composition of all 3 assemblages. Each assemblage was used to construct the WCI for isolated forested wetlands in Florida, which included 19 total metrics (7 diatom metrics, 6 macrophyte metrics, and 6 macroinvertebrate metrics). All metrics were significantly correlated (Spearman's correlation coefficient, p < 0.05) with the Landscape Development Intensity (LDI) index, a measure of the use of nonrenewable energy in the surrounding landscape.; While the WCI suggested low biological integrity of both agricultural and urban wetlands, these wetlands provide services and do work in the environment. Therefore, the quantitative score of biological integrity established through the WCI should not be used as a surrogate for wetland value, but rather as an objective, quantitative means of comparing changes in community composition along gradients of landscape development intensity. In the future, an integrative multi-metric multi-assemblage WCI could be constructed for wetlands throughout the state, with lists of indicator species and metric scores dependent on Florida ecoregions and specific to wetland type. |
