Background 1

It has been a common technique in ecology to use indicator organisms to evaluate certain aspects of an ecosystem. It is shown that certain species thrive in particular environments, so by finding what the diversity is in a location aids in answering questions about the area.

Biodiversity can be used as an indicator of environment. Aceres (2010) shows the benefit of testing multiple locations and how the wildlife diversity can reflect how recently the land was tampered with. The Winner (1980) surveyed the population differences of different insects near rivers suspected of metal pollution. Their results showed a vast difference in the species found in the polluted water versus clean. Gaufin had a similar experiment that used aquatic invertebrates to measure water pollution.