CalcLIFE: Lotic-invertebrate Index for Flow Evaluation

In aquaMetrics/aquaMetrics: Freshwater Biotic indices

Description

The LIFE method is based on recognized flow associations of different macroinvertebrate taxa. It links qualitative and semi-quantitative change in riverine benthic macroinvertebrate communities to prevailing flow regimes. It can be calculated at Taxonomic Levels 5, 2 and 1 (for TL1/2 composite families).

Usage

CalcLIFE(data, season = NULL, TL = 2L)

Arguments

data	A dataframe containing standardised taxa with at least eight columns and in the specified order. Extra columns can be added, but they must be related to Sampling Point. See 'Details'
season	Optional. An integer vector containing up to 7 elements, from 1L to 7L. It is only needed when the input data frame contains Season and Year instead of Sample ID and Date. See 'Details' for more info about input columns.
TL	An integer vector containing up to 3 elements which would represent the taxonomic level to calulate LIFE at. They can be 1L (for TL1/2), 2L and 5L.

Details

The input dataframe data must contain a minimum of eight columns in the specified order: TL (Taxonomic Level), Site, Season or Sample ID, Year or Date (Date object), Maitland Code, Maitland Name, Abundance, Infered (Code returned by the function StandardiseRawTaxa which can be declared as 0 if StandardiseRawTaxa is not used).

If the data frame contains Season and Year instead of Sample ID / Date, the season parameter must be a vector of the form c(1L, 3L, 5L), indicating which seasons, and combination of seasons, must be computed.

The available codes for Season and a general description of Taxonomic Levels are defined in the main help page of the aquaMetrics package.

Value

A dataframe with the following columns: TL, Site, Season or Sample ID, Year or Date (Date object), Infered, extra columns - if any, and LIFEScore.

Note

More extra columns can be added to aggregate data by different criteria, i.e., other than season or Sample ID. For doing so you must fill all season fields with a dummy value: 1.Thus, the aggregation would disregard season/Sample ID as an aggregation column.

References

Extence, C, Balbi, D., Chadd, R. 1999. River flow indexing using British benthic macroinvertebrates: A framework for setting hydroecological objectives. Regul Rivers Res Mgmt. 15: 543-574.

See Also

StandardiseRawTaxa

Examples

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aquaMetrics/aquaMetrics documentation built on May 6, 2019, 7:26 a.m.