The global EPTO database: Worldwide occurrences of aquatic insects

Abstract

Motivation Aquatic insects comprise 64% of freshwater animal diversity and are widely used as bioindicators to assess water quality impairment and freshwater ecosystem health, as well as to test ecological hypotheses. Despite their importance, a comprehensive, global database of aquatic insect occurrences for mapping freshwater biodiversity in macroecological studies and applied freshwater research is missing. We aim to fill this gap and present the Global EPTO Database, which includes worldwide geo‐referenced aquatic insect occurrence records for four major taxa groups: Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera and Odonata (EPTO). Main type of variables contained A total of 8,368,467 occurrence records globally, of which 8,319,689 (99%) are publicly available. The records are attributed to the corresponding drainage basin and sub‐catchment based on the Hydrography90m dataset and are accompanied by the elevation value, the freshwater ecoregion and the protection status of their location. Spatial location and grain The database covers the global extent, with 86% of the observation records having coordinates with at least four decimal digits (11.1 m precision at the equator) in the World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS84) coordinate reference system. Time period and grain Sampling years span from 1951 to 2021. Ninety‐nine percent of the records have information on the year of the observation, 95% on the year and month, while 94% have a complete date. In the case of seven sub‐datasets, exact dates can be retrieved upon communication with the data contributors. Major taxa and level of measurement Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera and Odonata, standardized at the genus taxonomic level. We provide species names for 7,727,980 (93%) records without further taxonomic verification. Software format The entire tab‐separated value (.csv) database can be downloaded and visualized at https://glowabio.org/project/epto_database/. Fifty individual datasets are also available at https://fred.igb-berlin.de, while six datasets have restricted access. For the latter, we share metadata and the contact details of the authors.

Spatial Variations in Aquatic Insect Community Structure in the Winam Gulf of Lake Victoria, Kenya

“…Freshwater hosts approximately 10% of the world's biodiversity [92][93][94][95] with 64% of the animal biodiversity being aquatic insects [96]. Currently, the aquatic insects comprise of more than 88,500 species from approximately 13 orders [101,102].…”

“…Currently, the aquatic insects comprise of more than 88,500 species from approximately 13 orders [101,102]. Te knowledge to understand the patterns is vital as the insects serve as indicator species [95,96,[103][104][105].…”

Assessing the spatial knowledge gaps of Odonata diversity and conservation in the South American Pampa

“…We compiled occurrence records of odonate species in the South American Pampa from the following sources: (i) literature reviews and species lists for the target region (Dalzochio et al, 2018; De Marco & Vianna, 2005; Grigoropoulou et al, 2023; Lozano et al, 2020; Renner et al, 2017; von Ellenrieder et al, 2009); (ii) scientific articles published up to August 2023; (iii) the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF.org, 2023a; 2023b); (iv) fieldwork conducted in the Brazilian Pampa by the team of the Laboratory of Ecology and Conservation of the Federal University of Pará; (v) SpeciesLink <http://www.splink.org.br/>; and (vi) data provided by researchers and collaborators.…”

“…We compiled occurrence records of odonate species in the South American Pampa from the following sources: (i) literature reviews and species lists for the target region (Dalzochio et al, 2018;De Marco & Vianna, 2005;Grigoropoulou et al, 2023;Lozano et al, 2020;Renner et al, 2017;von Ellenrieder et al, 2009) We applied a protocol to exclude records with potential errors, taking into account the following criteria: (i) rounded or suspicious geographical coordinates-these are records with geographical coordinates assigned to the centroid of a municipality, state, country, or falling outside the limits of the Pampas; (ii) invalid, unlikely, mismatched, or absent collection dates; and (iii) invalid species names (e.g. non-existent species name, identification to a taxonomic level higher than species, such as genus, family or higher ranks) based on the World Odonata List, which contains the updated list of Odonata species (Paulson et al, 2024).…”