Aquatic invertebrates are especially useful as monitoring tools to assess the health and quality of aquatic environments. However, little emphasis has been placed on studying the distribution and abundance of these organisms, particularly the small or rare species. These invertebrate data have great utility in providing a benchmark on ecosystem status but must be organized and archived for future analyses.

• Center scientists will distribute information defining indicator species and appropriate collecting methods.

Lake Report: Status and Trends in the Lake Huron Deepwater Aquatic Community, 2003

• The Center also will make available via the World Wide Web the prototypes of taxonomic keys for important groups of aquatic invertebrates. Such computerbased keys will include figures of species and principal characteristics as well as summaries of relevant ecological information.

Great Lakes Copepod Key