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 informatio...