Scientific Data (Jun 2024)

Time series of freshwater macroinvertebrate abundances and site characteristics of European streams and rivers

  • Ellen A. R. Welti,
  • Diana E. Bowler,
  • James S. Sinclair,
  • Florian Altermatt,
  • Mario Álvarez-Cabria,
  • Giuseppe Amatulli,
  • David G. Angeler,
  • Gaït Archambaud,
  • Iñaki Arrate Jorrín,
  • Thomas Aspin,
  • Iker Azpiroz,
  • Nathan Jay Baker,
  • Iñaki Bañares,
  • José Barquín Ortiz,
  • Christian L. Bodin,
  • Luca Bonacina,
  • Núria Bonada,
  • Roberta Bottarin,
  • Miguel Cañedo-Argüelles,
  • Zoltán Csabai,
  • Thibault Datry,
  • Elvira de Eyto,
  • Alain Dohet,
  • Sami Domisch,
  • Gerald Dörflinger,
  • Emma Drohan,
  • Knut A. Eikland,
  • Judy England,
  • Tor E. Eriksen,
  • Vesela Evtimova,
  • Maria J. Feio,
  • Martial Ferréol,
  • Mathieu Floury,
  • Maxence Forcellini,
  • Marie Anne Eurie Forio,
  • Riccardo Fornaroli,
  • Nikolai Friberg,
  • Jean-François Fruget,
  • Jaime R. Garcia Marquez,
  • Galia Georgieva,
  • Peter Goethals,
  • Manuel A. S. Graça,
  • Andy House,
  • Kaisa-Leena Huttunen,
  • Thomas Correll Jensen,
  • Richard K. Johnson,
  • J. Iwan Jones,
  • Jens Kiesel,
  • Aitor Larrañaga,
  • Patrick Leitner,
  • Lionel L’Hoste,
  • Marie-Hélène Lizée,
  • Armin W. Lorenz,
  • Anthony Maire,
  • Jesús Alberto Manzanos Arnaiz,
  • Brendan Mckie,
  • Andrés Millán,
  • Timo Muotka,
  • John F. Murphy,
  • Davis Ozolins,
  • Riku Paavola,
  • Petr Paril,
  • Francisco Jesús Peñas Silva,
  • Marek Polasek,
  • Jes Rasmussen,
  • Manu Rubio,
  • David Sánchez Fernández,
  • Leonard Sandin,
  • Ralf B. Schäfer,
  • Astrid Schmidt-Kloiber,
  • Alberto Scotti,
  • Longzhu Q. Shen,
  • Agnija Skuja,
  • Stefan Stoll,
  • Michal Straka,
  • Rachel Stubbington,
  • Henn Timm,
  • Violeta G. Tyufekchieva,
  • Iakovos Tziortzis,
  • Yordan Uzunov,
  • Gea H. van der Lee,
  • Rudy Vannevel,
  • Emilia Varadinova,
  • Gábor Várbíró,
  • Gaute Velle,
  • Piet F. M. Verdonschot,
  • Ralf C. M. Verdonschot,
  • Yanka Vidinova,
  • Peter Wiberg-Larsen,
  • Peter Haase

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03445-3
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 8

Abstract

Read online

Abstract Freshwater macroinvertebrates are a diverse group and play key ecological roles, including accelerating nutrient cycling, filtering water, controlling primary producers, and providing food for predators. Their differences in tolerances and short generation times manifest in rapid community responses to change. Macroinvertebrate community composition is an indicator of water quality. In Europe, efforts to improve water quality following environmental legislation, primarily starting in the 1980s, may have driven a recovery of macroinvertebrate communities. Towards understanding temporal and spatial variation of these organisms, we compiled the TREAM dataset (Time seRies of European freshwAter Macroinvertebrates), consisting of macroinvertebrate community time series from 1,816 river and stream sites (mean length of 19.2 years and 14.9 sampling years) of 22 European countries sampled between 1968 and 2020. In total, the data include >93 million sampled individuals of 2,648 taxa from 959 genera and 212 families. These data can be used to test questions ranging from identifying drivers of the population dynamics of specific taxa to assessing the success of legislative and management restoration efforts.