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Estimates of secondary production depend on the efficiency of sampling methods in capturing abundances and body lengths of the entire macroinvertebrate community. The efficiency of common sampling methods in fulfilling these criteria is poorly understood. We compared the effects of a Surber sampler (250 µm mesh size) and a Freeze corer in capturing abundance, biomass, and secondary production of macroinvertebrates in a forested headwater stream. We then examined how the use of nets with different mesh sizes could affect estimates of secondary production. Macroinvertebrate abundance was three times lower, and biomass was three times higher with the Surber than with the Freeze corer. Neither method captured the entire length distribution, and incomplete sampling of body lengths and abundance resulted in underestimating total secondary production by 48% (Surber) and 49% (Freeze corer). We estimated that reducing the mesh size from 250 to 100 µm would reduce the underestimation of production from ~ 48 to ~ 12% due to the inclusion of smaller individuals. Our results improve the efficiency of common sampling methods, allowing a reliable quantification of the role of macroinvertebrates in stream ecosystem functioning.

The role of hydromorphological degradation and temporal variation for food webs in human-modified rivers is still not fully evaluated. We tested the hypothesis that man-made engineering structures alter macroinvertebrate resource use in the Elbe River (Germany) in relation to seasonal variation. Stable isotopes (δ13C, δ15N) and mixing models revealed that dietary contributions of benthic organic matter (BOM) and phytoplankton were driven by engineering structure. Contributions of biofilm were driven by season, while contributions of terrestrial particulate organic matter (t-POM) were driven by both engineering structure and season. Contributions of t-POM were larger than those of phytoplankton in spring and summer, but not in autumn, which adds to the debate about the sources of organic matter fuelling riverine benthic food webs. Resource availability was not systematically related to resource use, indicating that factors other than resource limitation were responsible for the observed results. By demonstrating that human alterations determine consumer resource use independently from resource availability, our study links hydromorphological modifications to fluxes of matter in riverine food webs. Future studies should quantify organic matter fluxes from various autochthonous and allochthonous pathways in human-modified and natural rivers to allow for a robust synthesis of how hydromorphological modifications alter benthic food webs.

Ephemeral ponds are often dominated by species with both terrestrial and aquatic life phases. Such species have the potential to strongly alter the food web structure of ponds, particularly if they are predators. Here we experimentally tested the effects of salamander larvae (Salamandra salamandra) on invertebrate communities in ephemeral forest ponds. We repeatedly split two ponds into salamander enclosure- and exclosure-segments, and compared the diversity and biomass of potential prey organisms. We used stable isotopes of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) of resources and consumers to characterise the food web structure. The presence of salamander larvae did not affect abundances of culicid larvae, their preferred prey. The population dynamics of most insect larvae was independent of the presence of salamander larvae, and was instead driven by the timing of hatching and emergence. However, a significant reduction resulting from salamander predation could be detected in the less abundant chironomid larvae. There was no substantial alteration of the food web structure as indicated by stable isotopes. However, the stable isotope results suggest a strong trophic subsidisation from the terrestrial system, which is probably the reason for the weak top-down effects of the salamander larvae on the invertebrate food web.

This study addressed the influence of common shoreline engineering structures (off-bankline revetment, rip rap and wing dike) on richness, biomass and secondary production of native and non-native macroinvertebrates in the navigation channel and near-shore habitats in the Elbe River (Germany). Within the navigation channel, only marginal differences among engineering structures were observed, and non-native species were absent from all samples. At the shoreline, secondary production of non-native species was significantly greater at the rip rap and represented 59% of total secondary production in near-shore habitats. Conversely, secondary production of native species at the shoreline was 9-fold lower at the rip rap and more than twice the rates at the wing dike. Differences in secondary production among engineering structures were attributed to differential distribution of substrate types. Boulder substrates, the dominant substrate type in the rip rap, promoted contributions of non-native species while macrophytes and silt were associated with high contributions of native species at the off-bankline revetment. Our results reveal that the morphological configuration of engineering structures in large rivers not only controls the rate of secondary production for macroinvertebrates but also the contribution of non-native species to total community functioning.

Lake shores are characterised by a high natural variability, which is increasingly threatened by a multitude of anthropogenic disturbances including morphological alterations to the littoral zone. ...

Length–mass relationships are widely used to estimate body mass from body dimensions for freshwater macroinvertebrates. The relationships are influenced by environmental conditions and should be applied within ecosystems and geographic regions similar to those for which they were estimated. However, very few relationships exist for littoral macroinvertebrates, and thus we provide length–mass relationships for macroinvertebrates from lakes of the Central European lowlands. We compared log-linear and nonlinear methods for fitting length–mass relationships and tested the smearing factor for removing bias in mass predictions from log-linear models. We also estimated conversion factors to correct for mass changes during ethanol preservation and assessed the transferability of our results to different geographical regions. We showed that the log-linear approach gave better results in fitting length–mass relationships, while residuals showed that nonlinear models over-predict the mass of small individuals. The smearing correction factor successfully removed bias introduced by log transformation, and relationships transferred well between lakes in the same and different geographical regions. In total, 52 bias-corrected length–mass relationships are provided for littoral macroinvertebrates that are applicable also to lakes in geographic regions with similar environmental conditions, such as the Central European lowlands or the temperate lowland zone of America.

Littoral macroinvertebrates are increasingly used for assessing the ecological status of lakes according to the EU Water Framework Directive. This requires harmonised sampling methods, but information on the appropriate spatial scale of the sampling as well as on the adequate sample sizes are mostly lacking. In this study, we compared the spatial variability of littoral (