Resumen

GAMBOA, Maribet; REYES, Rosa  y  ARRIVILLAGA, Jazzmin. Benthic macroinvertebrates as bioindicators of environmental health. Bol Mal Salud Amb [online]. 2008, vol.48, n.2, pp.109-120. ISSN 1690-4648.

The fluvial system has been under strong human pressure, due to a lack of urban planning, which has triggered a potentially dangerous potable water problem for human consumption and irrigation. These changes in the quality of the fluvial systems have promoted important microclimatic changes, within the niche of special aquatic fauna, macroinvertebrates, that have a susceptible population dynamics to habitat disturbances. For sustainable development it is necessary to consider aquatic atmosphere conservation and to propose an adequate management plan, which includes bioindicators as a potential tool, to evaluate the perturbation grade and monitor the fluvial system within the water conservation plan. A bioindicador is defined as a set of species, with specific requirements in relation to physical or chemical variables, so that the significant changes of these variables indicates for the species that the system is perturbed and the species are close to tolerance limits. The assemblages of macroinvertebrates are the best bioindicators of contaminated water, because they are very abundant, are present in all the fresh water ecosystems, easy to collect and monitoring is low cost. The taxa to consider for environmental quality are: Ephemeroptera, Trichoptera, Plecóptera, Diptera, Odonata and Coleóptera. In this work we suggest the use of these aquatic macroinvertebrates as biological bioindicators, and their utility as biotic indices to estimate the tolerance of benthos to the polluting agents (BMWP, IBMW, BMWQ, IBF, EPT, the percentage of scrapers and the abundance of Chironomidae) as well as the functional response of these organisms to the polluting agents. Increasing studies of biomarkers leads to a better understanding of how fresh water is affected by a pollutant.

Palabras clave : bioindicators; aquatic environment; macro invertebrates; water quality; sustainable environment.