. Building Illinois' biological memory : a framework for long-term ecosystem monitoring. Environmental monitoring. s^^. Ecowatch Citizen Scientists collect aquatic macroinvertebrates from an Illinois stream. Ecological Indicators: Taking the Pulse of Ecosystem Health Illinois is uniquely situated at America's ecological crossroads. Five distinct eco-regions or "biomes" come together within our state. They include the eastern deciduous forest, western great plain, northern boreal forest, Ozark uplift, and southern coastal plain. This patchwork of biomes is a melting pot for an extreme
. Building Illinois' biological memory : a framework for long-term ecosystem monitoring. Environmental monitoring. s^^. Ecowatch Citizen Scientists collect aquatic macroinvertebrates from an Illinois stream. Ecological Indicators: Taking the Pulse of Ecosystem Health Illinois is uniquely situated at America's ecological crossroads. Five distinct eco-regions or "biomes" come together within our state. They include the eastern deciduous forest, western great plain, northern boreal forest, Ozark uplift, and southern coastal plain. This patchwork of biomes is a melting pot for an extremely diverse range of flora and fauna. As host to more than species of native organisms, Illinois contains some of the richest natural areas in the entire Midwest. Given the abundance and variety of species throughout Illinois, using an inventory approach to track ecosystem health is both time consuming and expensive. Instead, scientists have devised a set of key ecological indica- tors to measure ecological trends and biodiversity. Indicators include native and non-native species known to reflect the condition of biotic integrity. Certain physical parameters describing habitat structure are also examined. Select species can be used as indicators themselves or as components of composite indices, which provide a snapshot of ecosystem health. Changes in the abundance or distribution of indicator organisms also reflect underlying changes in ecological factors influencing biodiversity. Ecological indicators offer many advantages over other methods of measuring ecosystem health. They tend to be highly sensitive to small changes in ecosystem quality and allow condi- tions over a wide area to be assessed in a short period of time. Moreover, indicator-based monitoring methods are widely recognized and accepted among the scientific community, and are easily adapted for use by Citizen Scientists. Five major taxanomic groups have been selected from which the primary CTAP/EcoWatch eco
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