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Environmental Sciences Europe

Table 4 Spearman rank correlations between selected macroinvertebrate metrics and stressor variables of the four stressor groups

From: The hierarchy of multiple stressors’ effects on benthic invertebrates: a case study from the rivers Erft and Niers, Germany

Metric name (metric code)

Physico-chemical stress

Hydrological alteration

Morphological degradation

O2

Fe

TP

NO2-N

ra5

HP2

Ecological Quality Class

    

0.50

 

Index of Biocoenotic Region

    

0.56

 

Rheoindex

    

 − 0.53

 

Nb. of EPTCBO

 

 − 0.64

  

 − 0.54

 

KLIWA Index

 

0.59

0.59

 

0.57

0.66

%Alien species

 − 0.53

 

0.52

  

0.53

German Fauna Index

0.63

     

%Psa

   

 − 0.54

  

%POM

 − 0.54

     

%Gath

 − 0.57

     
  1. Only results with Spearman’s rho >|0.5| are shown. All correlations are significant at p < 0.001. Ecological Quality Class indicates better ecological condition at lower classes, Fauna Index indicates reference conditions at higher values. Index of Biocoenotic Region represents river zonation from crenal to hypopotamal and Rheoindex the proportion of still water and ubiquists to rheobiontic species. KLIWA Index is scaled as a temperature equivalent [°C]
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