Use of multivariate dispersion to assess water quality based on species composition data

Multivariate dispersion is a powerful approach to determine the variability in species composition of a fauna or a flora and has been considered as a broad β-diversity in global ecological research. To explore the availability of the dispersions based on species composition data for assessing water quality, a dataset of ciliated protozoa in a basin ecosystem, northern China, was studied. Samples were collected from five sampling stations, within a significant heterogeneity of environmental stress. The homogeneity of multivariate dispersions in species composition of the ciliate assemblages represented a clear spatial pattern in response to the environmental stress. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that the spatial variation in species composition of the ciliate was significantly correlated with the changes of environmental variables, especially the nutrients, in combination with the salinity and pH, or alone. Furthermore, the dispersion measure was found to be significantly related to the nutrient. Based on our data, we suggest that multivariate dispersion measures based on species presence/absence data might be used as a potential bioindicator of water quality in marine ecosystems.