Stream benthic macroinvertebrates abundances over a 6-year monitoring period of an Italian glacier-fed stream

By

Scotti, Alberto
Tappeiner, Ulrike
Bottarin, Roberta

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2019-03-06

Original Publication

Biodiversity data journal

Volume

7

Pages

1--6

Subjects

Alps , Biodiversity , biomonitoring , climate change , community structure , ILTER , Insects , macroinvertebrates , Mountains , Saldur , stream

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia Pensoft Publishers [2013]-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.7.e33576
eLocator: e33576

 

Abstract

Aquatic macroinvertebrates are widely used as bioindicators for water quality assessments involving different kinds of disruptive factors, such as hydrological regime variations or pollutant spills. Recently, they demonstrated to be effective in monitoring effects of climate change in alpine stream and rivers. Indeed, since the distribution of macroinvertebrates in glacier-fed streams has been succesfully investigated and described by several authors, the discrepancy in presence/absence and quantity of specific taxa from the established models may represent an early warning of the effects of climatic changes occurring in alpine riverine ecosystems.<br> Together with the present paper, we provide a dataset covering a period of 6 years (2010-2015) sampling of aquatic macroinvertebrates along a longitudinal transect of a glacier-fed stream located in the Italian Alps, inside the International Long Term Ecological Research (ILTER) macrosite of Matsch|Mazia (IT-25). Data were collected during the glacial melt period (April - September), with monthly resolution. Owing to the unique temporal resolution of the dataset, we aim to produce a reliable tool (i.e. reference point) for future ecological assessment on the same stream, but also to similar streams worldwide.