Range maps and waterbody occupancy data for 1158 freshwater macroinvertebrate genera in the contiguous USA

Abstract

Range maps are used to estimate the geographic extent of taxa, providing valuable information for biodiversity and conservation research and management. Freshwater macroinvertebrates are not well-represented in the range map literature relative to freshwater vertebrates. To address this knowledge gap, we provide range maps for 1158 freshwater macroinvertebrate genera based on two decades of publicly available occurrence data from the USEPA National Aquatic Resource Surveys, which included 11,628 sites and 6,906,990 organisms across the contiguous USA. Maps were created by applying unweighted and weighted pair group method with arithmetic mean clustering and single-linkage clustering algorithms to the occurrence data and creating three layers of polygons from the minimum convex hulls of clusters. A total of 25 freshwater macroinvertebrate classes are represented in the range map dataset. Most mapped genera were insects (394/1158), followed by malacostracans (242/1158), polychaetes (182/1158), and bivalves (121/1158). Additionally, we provide waterbody type percent occupancy data for all genera, detailing how genera are partitioned between boatable streams, wadeable streams, inland lakes, Laurentian Great Lakes, and coastal estuaries.