Definition
Biomonitoring is the field of scientific investigation that examines the response of living organisms to the quality of the environments in which they live. In the most general sense, organisms respond to factors in the environment by thriving or not thriving. Biomonitoring at the most basic level looks at the health of organisms as a measure of the state of the environment in which they are living. We use organisms to determine environmental conditions.
Agencies
Local, State, Federal and International Organizations are charged with improving the state of the environment by using biological criteria. The use of the state of the health of organisms in an environment is a good indication of the health of the environment because many organisms are intolerant of a wide range of environmental variables and toxins that are associated with degradation of the environments in which they live. Many agencies are adopting biomonitoring as a more accurate way to understand the impact of human activities on the environment. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has been a leader in the biomonitoring of streams, wetlands and now primary headwater habitats and has developed many of the standard protocols used for assessing stream and wetland state and health.
Protocols
Protocols are standardized, tested procedures that are used in scientific investigations. The importance of using standardized procedures is that differences in studies can then be compared with one another. Difference in the studies are not then caused by the way in which the investigation was conducted, but rather are due directly to differences in the environmental conditions in the places that were studied.
page created by Dennis J. Taylor
taylordj at hiram.edu
Banner Photo: Matthew J. Wilson