Bioindicators: A Review of Their Use in the Environmental Literature 1970–2005

Abstract

A wide range of scientists, managers, governmental agencies, and the public are interested in assessing the health and well-being of species, populations, and ecosystems. This has resulted in increased studies of the usefulness of different indicators as a measure of stressors and contaminants. This paper presents a review of bioindicators since 1970 by using four journals: Science of the Total Environment, Environmental Science and Technology, Environmental Pollution, and Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety. The overall objective was to examine temporal trends in publications on bioindicators, the species used as bioindicators, the contaminants of concern, and what they indicated (e.g., pollution or air quality). Overall, there has been a steady rise in the publication of papers about indicators since 1970, with nearly 35% of the indicator papers published in the last 5 years. Most papers that use the term indicator or bioindicator deal with some form of pollution, environmental quality, or human heal...