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Conservation of taxonomic and biological trait diversity of European stream macroinvertebrate communities: a case for a collective public database

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Abstract

The use of databases for the conservation of biodiversity is increasing. During the last decade, such a database has been created for European stream macroinvertebrates. Today, it includes 527 sites that are the least human-impacted representatives of many stream types across many European regions. It includes data on the abundance of 312 invertebrate genera, several environmental site characteristics, collection methods, bibliographic data sources, and 11 biological traits of the genera (e.g. size, life cycle, food and feeding habits, described in 61 categories). The database will be useful in addressing many topics that are potentially relevant to biodiversity conservation. To illustrate this potential, we provide examples of how the data could be exploited. First, we describe the frequency of some taxonomic and biological characteristics (e.g. richness and diversity of genera and traits) of the macroinvertebrate communities and assess how these characteristics are related (e.g. how trait richness increases with genus richness). Second, we describe the frequency of some characteristics of the genera and traits (e.g. occurrence frequency, abundance, dispersion index) and again assess how these characteristics are related (e.g. how occurrence increases with abundance). Finally, we suggest how the database could be developed into a collective, publicly accessible database that covers stream types and regions of Europe more comprehensively.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all researchers and editors who published results in a format such that we could use them for our database and the many colleagues that provided personal information to fill data gaps (all mentioned in previous papers that used the data). We particularly thank our Iberian colleagues who generously provided so many published and unpublished Mediterranean data and agreed that these could be made accessible to others: Vicenç Acuña, Isabel Muñoz, Narcís Prat, Maria Rieradevall, Carolina Solà, Mireia Vila (all at the University of Barcelona), Maria Luisa Suárez, Chary Vidal-Abarca (both at the University of Murcia), Nuno Coimbra, Manuel Graça (both at the University of Coimbra), Javier Alba-Tercedor, Carmen Zamora-Muñoz (both at the University of Granada), Alfonso Gallardo-Mayenco (University of Sevilla), and José Luis Moreno (University of Castilla-La-Mancha). We sincerely thank Henri Tachet for permission to provide on-line access to the modified and expanded trait information of Tachet et al. (2002) (under the condition that this key source of the trait data will be cited when used in publications by others). Finally, we thank two anonymous referees and Robert H. Cowie for comments on the manuscript.

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  1. CNRS-Ecologie des Hydrosystèmes Fluviaux, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 69622, Villeurbanne Cedex, France

    Bernhard Statzner, Núria Bonada & Sylvain Dolédec

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  1. Bernhard Statzner
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  2. Núria Bonada
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  3. Sylvain Dolédec
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Correspondence to Bernhard Statzner.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Biological traits and their categories in the database.

  1. (1)

    Maximum size (mm): ≤2.5; >2.5–5; >5–10; >10–20; >20–40; >40–80; >80.

  2. (2)

    Life cycle duration (yr): ≤1; >1.

  3. (3)

    Potential number of reproduction cycles per year: <1; 1; >1.

  4. (4)

    Aquatic stages: egg; larva; nymph; imago.

  5. (5)

    Reproduction: ovoviviparity; isolated eggs, free (not fixed to a substrate); isolated eggs, cemented; clutches, cemented or fixed; clutches, free; eggs or clutches in vegetation (endophytic); clutches, terrestrial; asexual reproduction.

  6. (6)

    Dispersal: aquatic passive; aquatic active; aerial passive; aerial active.

  7. (7)

    Mechanisms for resistance against unfavourable conditions: eggs, statoblasts, gemmules; cocoons; using refuges (e.g. small crevices) to resist desiccation during droughts; diapause or dormancy; none.

  8. (8)

    Respiration technique: tegument; gill; plastron; spiracle or hydrostatic vesicle (aerial).

  9. (9)

    Locomotion and substrate relation: flier; surface swimmer; swimmer; crawler; burrower (epibenthic); interstitial (endobenthic); temporarily attached; almost permanently attached.

  10. (10)

    Food: fine sediment and microrganisms; detritus <1 mm; plant detritus ≥1 mm; living microphytes; living macrophytes; dead animals ≥1 mm; living microinvertebrates; living macroinvertebrates; vertebrates.

  11. (11)

    Feeding habits: deposit feeder; shredder; scraper; filter-feeder; piercer (plants or animals); predator (carver/engulfer/swallower); parasite, parasitoid.

Appendix 2

Regarding further development of the database, the majority of colleagues we consulted for advice agreed to develop the database in two steps. The first step would be to use the database as a collective research tool. For this purpose, the data described herein will be implemented in an operational database by Klement Tockner at the Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (http://www.eawag.ch/∼tockner/∼EuropeanRivers). Access to this research tool will be provided to potential users who have contributed or will add information to the database. Hopefully, such a collective research tool is sufficiently attractive to others that the coverage of European regions and stream types will be rapidly improved. After this improvement is achieved, the second step would be to convert the database into a user-friendly form enabling all sorts of searches and queries and to link it to other existing biodiversity databases (e.g. http://www.freshwaterlife.org/) that are freely accessible to the public.

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Statzner, B., Bonada, N. & Dolédec, S. Conservation of taxonomic and biological trait diversity of European stream macroinvertebrate communities: a case for a collective public database. Biodivers Conserv 16, 3609–3632 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-007-9150-1

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