Data for: A database of West European headwater macroinvertebrate stoichiometric traits

Motivation: Ecological stoichiometry investigates the equilibrium and the
fluxes of chemical elements and energy between organisms and their
environment. Several studies pointed out the value of integrating
stoichiometric traits for a better understanding of the mechanisms behind
community and ecosystem processes. Especially in the light of globally
changing nutrient levels in freshwater systems, the link of stoichiometric
traits to nutrient cycling and trophic interactions can improve our
investigations of a species or community response to these changes.
Benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages are widely used for biomonitoring in
freshwaters, providing a large number of data sets gathering information
about their taxonomic diversity at many different spatial and temporal
scales. Likewise, an increasing number of large databases gives ready
access to information on a variety of macroinvertebrate biological traits.
The addition of stoichiometric traits to this pool of available
information could thus expand the application of trait approaches and
facilitate the study of the links between nutrient cycling and ecosystem
functioning. Main types of variables contained: The database contains
information on elemental content of 188 taxa, in terms of the major
nutrients %C, %N and %P and the corresponding molar ratios C:N, C:P and
N:P. We provide calculated taxon mean values as well as the underlying raw
data on individual level that was obtained from field sampling,
supplemented by a literature research (n=1555, 174 taxa). Major taxa and
level of measurements: The database contains information on 188
macroinvertebrate taxa, available at species (n = 33), genus (96), tribe
(9), subfamily (6), family (42), order (1) or class (1) levels. Software
format: .csv file