CNR-IRSA activities related to INHABIT

The evaluation presented in the previous section is largely based upon published papers, i.e. the use of experimental data is only indirectly accounted for by extracting information from printed papers and authors’ collections. However, in order to put conservation and management strategies into practice, the direct use of original, autoecological data collected with uniformly analytical approaches presents major advantages, providing it is based on thorough taxonomical accuracy and on appropriate knowledge of the ecological attributes of the species. Therefore, we hope that the autoecological summary proposed in the book ‘Distribution and Ecological Preferences of European Freshwater Organisms. Volume 3. Ephemeroptera’ – and others of the same series - will be a useful starting point for further investigations throughout Europe and that the huge gaps on aquatic insects knowledge outlined will be remedied with new experimental data collections. In general terms, a broad data analysis of the auteocological preferences of most groups of aquatic insects on a European scale is advocated, in order to obtain a more complete picture of the autoecological characteristics of the species.

On this regard, CNR-IRSA is compiling an extended database [link a Database / Aquatic invertebrates], based on experimental data, for South European Ephemeroptera and other aquatic invertebrates. The INHABIT project will contribute with new samples from Sardinia and Piedmont to the collection of original information on autoecology of aquatic invertebrates of rivers and lakes.