DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3991563
title: Dataset_Biodiversity_River_Po_Macroinvertebrates_2020

description: The data set consists of 41 columns per 130,727 records. The first column reports the ID Code of each record. The successive six columns are a rank-based taxonomical classification including the categories of Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Subclass, Order, Family, when known and available. Then, one column reports the taxon name and one column the unique identifier for the occurrence of Global Biodiversity Information Facility database (GBIF, 2020). The following eight columns refer to: Frequency (expressed as absolute abundance and referred to the sampled area), Sampled Area, Sample code, Site code, Sampling date (as dd/mm/yyyy) and Sampled mesohabitat (Riffle, Pool or Generic). The next seventeen columns report the sampled microhabitat expressed as percentage, classified in nine mineral substrate classes and eight biological substrates as included in the national standardised method (ISPRA, 2014). The remaining seven columns refer to: Human impacts in the site (present or absent), Administrative Region, River Name, geodetic Datum, Longitude East and Latitude North and Altitude (as m a.s.l.).
description: Geographic coverage Study area: the rivers considered are part of the River Po network. They cover the Northern part of Italy crossing different Administrative Regions (Aosta Valley, Piedmont, Lombardy, Liguria, Veneto, Trentino, and Emilia-Romagna) including mostly the Subalpine area and the Po Plain. Bounding box: min Longitude: 6.71363 - max Longitude: 11.29543, min Latitude: 44.11007 - max Latitude: 46.49150, min Altitude: 10 - max Altitude: 2,280. Sampling design: The data set was created including all the available records (biotic on macroinvertebrates and abiotic) on the River Po and its tributaries. Habitat type: The considered rivers cover natural, artificial (channel), or partially modified by anthropic infrastructures rivers flowing through the Po Plain. Biogeographic region: Alpine, Continental and Mediterranean (EEA, 2017) Country: Italy Taxonomic coverage General description: The data set includes records of river macroinvertebrates. The checklist presents taxa (mainly, at family level) arranged and updated to December 2018 according to the Fauna Europaea classification (2020) (de Jong et al., 2014). Taxonomic ranks: macroinvertebrates are a heterogeneous group of aquatic organisms visible to the naked eye without employing optical instruments, living in contact with sediments on the bottom of lotic and lentic ecosystems. Macroinvertebrates include immature and adult stages of many different types of invertebrates, such as aquatic insects, crustaceans, molluscs, annelids, flatworms, and cnidarians. Taxonomic methods: These methods include the revision of names, and the delimitation of taxa following Fauna Europaea (https://fauna-eu.org/) as a reference. Taxon specialist: The first author is responsible for the data management. The authors (RF, AL) are not responsible for the identifications carried out by operators of the Environmental Agencies. Quality control for taxonomic data: Record validation and cleaning using Fauna Europaea were based on several steps and divided into: a) data check for spelling errors, b) data standardization (check of nomenclatural changes or synonyms), and c) data cleaning and validation for taxonomic reliability and taxonomic consistency.