| Title |
Development of Benthic Macroinvertebrates Lithophility Index (BMLI) for Biological Assessment of Stream Physical Microhabitat |
| Authors |
강보미(Bomi Kang) ; 공동수(Dongsoo Kong) |
| DOI |
https://doi.org/10.15681/KSWE.2025.41.1.30 |
| Keywords |
Benthic macroinvertebrates; BMLI; Lithophility; Physical microhabitat; Streambed |
| Abstract |
This study developed a Benthic Macroinvertebrate Lithophility Index (BMLI) to assess relationships between benthic macroinvertebrate communities and streambed substrate types, providing an advanced tool for evaluating stream physical microhabitats. Lithophilic valency, lithophilic value, and indicator weight value for 632 benthic macroinvertebrate taxa were revised using a dataset of 40,038 sampling units collected from 3,354 sites in South Korea from 2008 to 2023. BMLI could refine the classification of streambed substrates to enhance the accuracy and applicability of biological assessments, unlike previously developed Benthic Macroinvertebrate Streambed Index (BMSI), which classifies substrates into ten categories based on Shepard’s (1954) method, BMLI adapts Cummins’ (1962) five category classification to address over- or under-representation of certain substrate types. Among tested metrics, lithophilic values based on the average abundance of individuals were found to be more reliable and effective indicators than other approaches. BMLI demonstrated a highly significant correlation with streambed substrate types (determination coefficient, R² > 0.6), with slightly higher coefficients than BMSI. Assessment classes of BMLI could reflect physical characteristics of various streambed substrates, allowing for detailed biological assessments across diverse microhabitat conditions. However, further studies are required to refine its applicability across different |