Biotic indices of the littoral benthic community from the Bay of Quinte, eastern Lake Ontario / by Ron Dermott and Alexei Pachkevitch.: Fs97-4/2996E-PDF

"The littoral benthic community was sampled on soft sediments at 2 m depth and on cobble at <1 m in both the Upper Bay of Quinte (Trenton to North Port) and Lower Bay (Glenora to Amherst Island) during transect surveys done in 1966 and between 1988 and 2001. The cobble in the Upper Bay near Trenton supported a littoral community very similar to that on cobble in the Lower Bay, with a large biomass of fluvial species and presence of several species indicative of high water quality. Two biotic indices developed for hard substrates in streams were used to analyse the data from rocky substrates. The results indicated an expected gradation of water quality increasing from the Upper Bay to exposed Amherst Island, with very high index values also present at Massasauga Point near Belleville. Scores for the BioMAP and IOWA MBI indices indicated the area between Trenton and Big Bay had a community similar to that found in rivers with slight pollution. The littoral community in the Lower Bay was comparable to that on the shores of southeast Georgian Bay. The Lake Biotic Index (LBI), developed to compare the littoral community on soft sediments with the community inhabiting the deeper areas, was calculated for various parts of the bay. Results showed there was a slight reduction in community taxon richness between the littoral and deeper zones for the Trenton area and Lower Bay during 1966. There was less of a bathymetric decrease in faunal richness at Big Bay in 1966. The MBI and LBI indices found no evidence of an impaired benthic community in the Bay of Quinte during 1990 or 2001 when compared to other lakes"--Abstract, page v.

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