Freshwater insect occurrences and traits for the contiguous United States, 2001 - 2018

Freshwater insects comprise 60% of the diversity of freshwater animals and are essential indicators of ecosystem health. Yet our knowledge of the distribution of freshwater insect diversity in the United States is incomplete because we lack comprehensive data on freshwater insect distributions and traits at a continental scale. We fill this knowledge gap by presenting a database of occurrence records and functional traits for freshwater insects in the contiguous US. We compiled over 2.05 million genus occurrence records for 932 genera in the major freshwater insect orders, at 51,044 stream locations sampled between 2001 and 2018 by federal and state biological monitoring programs. We assembled life history, dispersal, morphology, and ecology traits from existing databases, scientific books, and the primary literature, and present traits and trait affinities for 1,072 insect genera. Our freshwater insects CONUS database can be used to map freshwater insect taxonomic and functional diversity, and when paired with environmental data, will provide a powerful resource for quantifying how the environment shapes diversity patterns as well as taxon-specific distributions across the contiguous US.

淡水昆虫占淡水动物多样性的60%，是生态系统健康的关键指示类群。然而，由于缺乏大陆尺度下淡水昆虫分布与功能性状（functional traits）的全面数据，针对美国境内淡水昆虫多样性分布的认知仍存在缺口。本研究填补了这一知识空白，发布了美国本土淡水昆虫的出现记录（occurrence records）与功能性状数据库。本研究整合了2001年至2018年间，由联邦及州级生物监测项目在51044个溪流采样点位获取的、覆盖淡水昆虫主要类群的932个属的超205万条属级出现记录（genus occurrence records）。我们从现有数据库、学术专著及原始文献中汇编了生活史、扩散、形态及生态相关性状，并提供了1072个昆虫属的性状及其性状亲和性（trait affinities）信息。本美国本土淡水昆虫数据库可用于绘制淡水昆虫的分类与功能多样性分布图；结合环境数据使用时，将成为强有力的研究资源，用于量化环境如何塑造美国本土的多样性分布格局，以及各分类群的专属分布范围。