Abstract
Status of freshwater invertebrate biodiversity in Ireland's rivers – time to take stock
Highlights
Four spatially and temporally extensive river macroinvertebrate datasets (AGRIBASELINE project as outlined above, the Biodiversity Project (Bradley 2001; Bradley et al 2002), the RIVTYPE project (Kelly-Quinn et al 2005) and Callanan et al (2008) on headwater streams) were compiled to investigate whether the richness of selected macroinvertebrate groups correlated with the remaining macroinvertebrate richness.The four datasets were derived from samples collected at 582 river sites across Ireland, covering spring, summer and autumn seasons and all had species-level taxonomic resolution for Plecoptera, Ephemeroptera, Trichoptera, Coleoptera, Gammaridae, Hirudinea and Gastropoda
This paper used the best available information to address the questions posed in relation to numbers of macroinvertebrate species in Irish rivers, their threat status and impacts of anthropogenic pressures
Ireland is often considered to have a depauperate freshwater invertebrate fauna compared with Britain and mainland Europe (McCarthy 1986; Murray and O’Connor 1992)
Summary
THE STATE OF KNOWLEDGE OF FRESHWATER INVERTEBRATE BIODIVERSITY IN IRELAND’S RIVERS. Tables of the numbers of species in key invertebrate groups in lotic and lentic freshwaters were compiled using information from peer-reviewed published papers and reports. The first dataset held largely species-level macroinvertebrate data collected as part of the AGRIBASELINE Project (see McMahon et al 2012) between spring 2007 and spring 2009 from thirty small, second and third order streams and rivers draining grass-based agricultural lands in three separate geographical regions, in the northwest (counties Sligo and Leitrim), midlands (counties Offaly and Laois) and south (county Cork) of Ireland (F igure 1). These data were used in this paper to assess changes in macroinvertebrate biodiversity across an agricultural intensity gradient. Status of Fr esh water In v erte br ate Biodi v ersit y in Ir ela n d’s R i v ers 69
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