What’s the count? The basic descriptive characteristics of the macroinvertebrate communities in the six European case studies of the DRYvER project
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | Intermittent stream sections are globally more prevalent than permanent ones, and in the future, with ongoing climate change and increasing demand for water, it is expected that dryings will get more frequent and severe. In the framework of the DRYvER project (H2020 – 869226) we processed a series of quantitative aquatic macroinvertebrate samples taken from drying river networks (DRNs). Samples were taken on six occasions in 2021–2022 from six European DRNs (Croatia, Czechia, Finland, France, Hungary, Spain). On each DRN we had between 20 to 25 sampling sites which were distributed on stream sections to represent the proportion of permanent and intermittent sites across each river network. Multihabitat sampling was conducted at each sampling site from a selected reach of 50–150 m, depending on a maximum mean wetted width of the riverbed. Quantitative samples were taken with either Surber or Hess samplers but only one type of sampling device was used in each DRN. Sampled area varied according to stream width between 0.5–1.5 m2 in case of flowing conditions or between 0.1–0.5 m2 if only pools were present at a site. Macroinvertebrates were processed to the genus level, except for taxonomically difficult groups which were identified at the family or higher levels. From the 639 processed samples we identified nearly 1.4 million individuals which belonged to 321 genera of 141 families of 17 higher-level taxonomic groups. We provide an overview of the basic characteristics of the macroinvertebrate fauna of each DRN and the selected methodological problems that arose during the work, such as the problem of higher-than-genus taxonomic level identification, for which our solution could serve as an example for future ecological studies. |
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