DISPERSE – A trait database to assess the dispersal potential of aquatic macroinvertebrates

Dispersal is an essential process in population and community dynamics, but is difficult to measure in the field. In freshwater ecosystems, information on biological traits related to organisms’ morphology, life history and behaviour provides useful dispersal proxies, but information remains scattered or unpublished for many taxa. We compiled information on multiple dispersal-related biological traits of European aquatic macroinvertebrates in a unique resource, the DISPERSE database. DISPERSE includes 39 trait categories grouped into nine dispersal-related traits for 480 taxa, including Annelida, Mollusca, Platyhelminthes, and Arthropoda such as Crustacea and Insecta, generally at the genus level. Information within DISPERSE can be used to address fundamental questions in metapopulation ecology, metacommunity ecology, macroecology and evolutionary ecology research. Information on dispersal proxies can be applied to improve predictions of ecological responses to global change, and to inform improvements to biomonitoring and conservation management strategies. The diverse sources used in DISPERSE complement existing trait databases by providing new information on dispersal traits, most of which would not otherwise be accessible to the scientific community.