January, 2000 
SCAMIT Newsletter 
Vol. 18, No.9 
between primary and review taxonomists. All 
participating parties received and identified 
(some of) their portion of the 36 randomly 
selected exchange samples and also received 
the identifications produced by the initial 
identification of the same material. Conflicting 
counts and identities were reexamined by the 
reanalysis lab prior to going to the meeting so 
that apparent, rather than real, errors did not 
occupy our discussions. The results of this 
procedure in the SCBPP were a guide and most 
of the discrepancies were easily resolved and 
usually without the need to change data. It will 
take several meetings however, and the 
schedule calls for completion of this portion of 
the program by mid-February 2000. A kernel of 
dispute will persist, however, and once all 
points of view have been entertained and 
specimens reexamined if necessary, the 
taxonomic coordinator(s) will have to reach a 
decision regarding the data (in the process of 
synoptic data review). Once any necessary 
changes have been performed, the data can be 
submitted in final form for analysis. This is 
currently scheduled for 1 April, not an 
auspicious date for the acceptance of an 
extensive database. We can make this deadline, 
yielding a collection-to-completed data set 
timeline of 18 months. 
NEW LITERATURE 
Analysis and interpretation of benthic 
monitoring data is always a fertile area for 
exploration. In this newsletter there are three 
articles of note dealing with data analysis. The 
first (Drake et al 1999) is another stab at 
evading the costs and delays inherent in species 
level identification of benthic data. This is a 
further test of the technique introduced back in 
1993 for detection of community alteration by 
anthropogenic activities. High level (in this 
case phylum) abstractions of benthic 
community data do provide one important 
characteristic - they allow usage in a wide 
spectrum of sites worldwide. Particularly at the 
phylum level one should be able to use the 
same approach to samples from the Antarctic 
and from the Southern California Bight, and 
find similar patterns of response to 
anthropogenic influence. At the local scale of 
interest to monitoring agencies, however, these 
analyses are likely to be somewhat lacking in 
sensitivity, particularly if the pollution signal is 
weak. In grossly polluted areas most any 
analysis will show a profound difference from 
unaffected areas, and the current high-level 
approach would probably be viable. For 
depiction of the niceties of just where influence 
of a point source declines to undetectable, 
however, all the information gathered is 
necessary (and even that may not be sufficient). 
As a taxonomist involved in species level 
identifications of benthic invertebrates I am 
hardly a neutral observer. I can, however, see 
applicability of the technique used by Drake et 
al in very large scale comparisons of sites in 
different oceans, or vastly differing habitats. 
For fine distinctions within a given region the 
use of species, particularly if there is 
replacement along the impact gradient, is more 
accurate and informative than use of family, 
order, or phylum level identifications. 
Mackenzie (1999) provides information on a 
differing approach, one using populations of 
fish parasites rather than benthic community 
structure per se. If such examinations are 
restricted to species which exhibit relatively 
high site fidelity the approach he proposes 
might be adaptable for use in a point source 
monitoring context. He suggests that internal 
fish parasites, which have delicate and 
probably highly pollution-sensitive 
transmission stages, would serve as a good 
“canary in a coalmine” early warning 
indicators of ecosystem health. The idea is 
intriguing but applicability to point source 
monitoring efforts is dubious at present. 
Closer to home Maurer et al (1999) suggest a 
different slant on analysis of benthic 
community data. They also favor an indicator 
approach using highly susceptible animals, 
substituting “rare” benthic species for the fish 
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