TREAM: Time series of freshwater macroinvertebrate abundances and site characteristics of European streams and rivers

Freshwater macroinvertebrates are a diverse group that play many key ecological roles, including accelerating nutrient cycling, filtering water, controlling aquatic primary producers, and providing food for predators. Since they rapidly respond to environmental changes, macroinvertebrate community composition is a commonly used indicator of water quality. In Europe, efforts to improve water quality following environmental legislation, primarily starting in the 1980s, may have driven a recovery of macroinvertebrate communities. Towards understanding temporal changes of these organisms, we compiled the TREAM database (Time seRies of European freshwAter Macroinvertebrates). The TREAM database consists of whole macroinvertebrate community time series from 1,816 river and stream sites (mean length of 19.2 years with 14.9 sampling years) of 22 European countries sampled between 1968 and 2020. In total, the data include >93 million sampled individuals of 2,648 taxa from 959 genera and 212 families. These data can be used to ask a wide range of questions from identifying drivers of the population dynamics of specific taxa to assessing the success of legislative and management restoration efforts.

淡水大型无脊椎动物（freshwater macroinvertebrates）是一类具有高度多样性的类群，承担着诸多关键生态功能，包括加速养分循环、净化水体、调控水生初级生产者种群，以及为捕食者提供食物来源。由于其对环境变化响应迅速，大型无脊椎动物群落组成常被用作水质监测的常规指示指标。在欧洲，自20世纪80年代起主要依托环境立法推进水质改善的举措，或已推动大型无脊椎动物群落的恢复。为解析这类生物的时间动态变化，我们构建了TREAM数据库（欧洲淡水大型无脊椎动物时间序列数据库，Time seRies of European freshwAter Macroinvertebrates）。该数据库包含来自22个欧洲国家、1816个河流与溪流监测点位的完整大型无脊椎动物群落时间序列数据，监测时段为1968年至2020年，序列平均时长19.2年，平均采样年份数为14.9年。总体而言，该数据集涵盖了212个科、959个属、2648个分类单元的超过9300万采样个体。这些数据可用于开展多维度研究，既可以解析特定分类单元种群动态的驱动因素，也可评估立法与管理修复举措的实施成效。