The publication of this paper coincided with the increasing need worldwide, and especially in Europe, to find environmental tools able to determine marine quality. In this particular case, the marine benthic communities constitute one of the elements which best reflects anthropogenic impacts.

“We are trying to improve the methodology and also to develop new methods, applicable to hard-bottom substrata as well as to other elements of the ecosystem.”

We developed an index of quality (AMBI), which has since been applied to different anthropogenic impacts in many geographical areas—throughout Europe, Uruguay, Brazil, Morocco, China, USA, Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia, etc. Together with this paper we decided to develop free software which made it easier to calculate and to represent the index, which probably has helped to spread the use of the AMBI index.

The AMBI index is based upon previous ecological models and its theoretical basis is that of the ecological adaptive strategies of the r, k and T, (McArthur and Wilson, 1967; Pianka, 1970; and Gray, 1979) and the ecological succession in stressed environments (Bellan, 1967; Pearson and Rosenberg, 1978; and Salen-Picard, 1983). However, the most novel contribution of the AMBI was a formula permitting the derivation of a series of continuous values. This allows scientists to readily show the quality of a location to policy makers and stakeholders.

The AMBI offers a "pollution or disturbance classification" of a particular site, representing the soft-bottom benthic community "health." This is very important in terms of management of marine habitats and also in assessing the ecological and environmental status of marine ecosystems.

My background is in benthic ecology, and, at AZTI, I have been involved for several years in marine monitoring and ecological assessment. One of the problems we faced was related to the absence of ecological tools able to determine and illustrate, in a simple way, the impact on marine systems. We need these kinds of tools both for marine monitoring and marine environmental impact assessment. Hence, the team involved in the research (Víctor Pérez, Javier Franco and Ángel Borja) decided to try and develop just such a method in order to help other scientists with the task of making complicated biological data accessible to stakeholders.

We are trying to improve the methodology and also to develop new methods, applicable to hard-bottom substrata as well as to other elements of the ecosystem. We are also working in the use of these kinds of tools within the European Water Framework Directive, and we have developed a "sister" approach (multivariate-AMBI or M-AMBI), which has been recently published, with the software being made available at www.azti.es.

Yes, this research has been applied to the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive. Many countries have adopted this methodology in their marine assessments, or have adapted it to their particular needs.