TY - JOUR T1 - A General-Purpose Biotic Index to Measure Changes in Benthic Habitat Quality across Several Pressure Gradients A1 - Labrune,Céline A1 - Gauthier,Olivier A1 - Conde,Anxo A1 - Grall,Jacques A1 - Blomqvist,Mats A1 - Bernard,Guillaume A1 - Gallon,Régis A1 - Dannheim,Jennifer A1 - Van Hoey,Gert A1 - Gremare,Antoine AD - Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Laboratoire d’Ecogéochimie des Environnements Benthiques, LECOB UMR 8222, F-66650 Banyuls-sur-Mer, France AD - LEMAR, Univ Brest, CNRS, IRD, Ifremer, 29280 Plouzané, France AD - OSU IUEM, Univ Brest, CNRS, IRD, 29280 Plouzané, France AD - Hafok AB, 179 61 Stenhamra, Sweden AD - CNRS, EPOC, UMR 5805, Station Marine d’Arcachon, 2 Rue du Professeur Jolyet, 33120 Arcachon, France AD - Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers/INTECHMER–Laboratoire Universitaire des Sciences Appliquées de Cherbourg LUSAC, UNICAEN, 51000 Cherbourg, France AD - Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, 27570 Bremerhaven, Germany AD - Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany AD - The Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Animal Science Department, 8400 Oostende, Belgium AD - University of Bordeaux, EPOC, UMR 5805, Station Marine d’Arcachon, 2 Rue du Professeur Jolyet, 33120 Arcachon, France UR - https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00698/81050/ DO - 10.3390/jmse9060654 KW - macrofauna KW - ROC curves KW - signal detection theory KW - GPBI KW - M-AMBI KW - TDI KW - physical disturbance KW - Marine Strategy Framework Directive N2 - Realistic assessments of the ecological status of benthic habitats, as requested by European directives such as the Water Framework Directive and the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive, require biotic indices capable of detecting anthropogenic impact without having preliminary knowledge of the occurring pressures. In this context, a new general-purpose biotic index (GPBI) based on the deviation of benthic macrofauna community composition and structure from a valid reference (i.e., good ecological status) is proposed. GPBI is based on the assumption that as a site becomes impacted by a pressure, the most sensitive species are the first to disappear, and that stronger impacts lead to more important losses. Thus, it explicitly uses the within-species loss of individuals in the tested station in comparison to one or several reference stations as the basis of ecological status assessment. In this study, GPBI is successfully used in four case studies considering the impact of diversified pressures on benthic fauna: (1) maerl extraction in the northern Bay of Biscay, (2–3) dredging and trawling in the North Sea, and (4) hypoxic events at the seafloor in the Gullmarfjord. Our results show that GPBI was able to efficiently detect the impact of the different physical disturbances as well as that of hypoxia and that it performs better than commonly used pressure-specific indices (M-AMBI and TDI). Signal detection theory was used to propose a sound good/moderate ecological quality status boundary, and recommendations for future monitoring are also provided based on the reported performance of GPBI. Y1 - 2021/06 PB - MDPI JF - Journal Of Marine Science And Engineering SN - 2077-1312 VL - 9 IS - 6 ID - 81050 ER -