Description: The goal of this overview is to describe the relationships among environmental management and the many types of assessment information generated with diatom data. We will review the goals of environmental assessment of aquatic ecosystems relative to the use of diatom data. We will then use case studies to illustrate the value of using diatom metrics for assessing biological condition and pollutants (stressors). We will introduce topics on species traits, indicator taxa, O/E models, multi-metric indices, and thresholds for streams, lakes, and wetlands. We will expand on these topics in future webinars.

Target Audience: Our intended audience for this webinar is anyone who is interested in general information about the use of diatom data in environmental assessments. This is an introductory webinar, so you should not expect specialized information, e.g., detailed methods used to calculate metrics.