EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS OF INDEX OF BIOTIC INTEGRITY SCORES CALCULATED FROM 
DATASETS OBTAINED FROM THREE DIFFERENT DAY ELECTROFISHING PROTOCOLS
	
By Andy Bartels1, Terry Dukerschien1, and Brian Ickes2

1Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Field Station, 2630 Fanta Reed Road, 
La Crosse, WI 54603; 

2USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, 2630 Fanta Reed Road, La 
Crosse, Wisconsin 54603

We analyzed fish community data from the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) collected 
by the Long Term Resource Monitoring Program (LTRMP), the Environmental 
Monitoring and Assessment Program – Great Rivers Ecosystems (EMAP-GRE), and 
Wisconsin’s non-wadeable stream monitoring program (WDNR).  Each of these 
programs uses day electrofishing to sample fish communities, but protocols and 
sampling designs differ.  We calculated Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) scores 
per metrics calibrated for Wisconsin rivers by Lyons et al, 2001 and compared 
results among programs.  We used non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (NMDS) and 
univariate plots of the data to examine statistical differences among the 
programs and to suggest factors that might have contributed to those 
differences.  The combined dataset provided significant discrimination between 
all five IBI scoring categories (very poor to excellent), but IBI scores 
calculated from the EMAP dataset suggested that three rating categories might be 
more suitable for that program.  NMDS yielded significant differences between 
the WDNR program and the other two programs, but not between EMAP and LTRMP.  
Both EMAP and LTRMP span the entire Upper Mississippi River mainstem, whereas 
WDNR encompasses only  Wisconsin waters.  In Wisconsin waters, IBI scores from 
all 3 protocols increased or remained stable from north to south.  However, in 
the context of the entire UMR, IBI scores for both LTRMP and EMAP-GRE declined 
from north to south.  Ten years of LTRMP sampling generally demonstrated 
consistent scores through time except for the area near Bellevue, Iowa, a 
recognized zone of ecological transition.  Plots of individual metrics against 
river mile suggested that some metrics (i.e. round-bodied suckers) in the Lyons 
IBI may be affected by geographic range limitations of the species selected for 
those metrics. 

Key words:  Upper Mississippi River, monitoring, fish, IBI, NMDS, LTRMP, EMAP, 
WDNR