27 Years of Freshwater Fish and Invertebrate Assemblage Data in the United States

Abstract

Motivation United States federal biomonitoring programs assess the status of freshwater ecosystems using standardised sampling protocols. While most data from these efforts are publicly available, new users face barriers in applying these data appropriately. Here, we introduce unified assemblage databases for fish and macroinvertebrates in rivers and streams from US federal biomonitoring. These are one of the largest single‐source assemblage databases for freshwater considering spatial and temporal extent. This effort is invaluable for addressing questions regarding temporal and spatial biodiversity patterns. A static version of the data is available. The data can also be compiled via an R package, finsyncR, which offers flexibility in acquiring and integrating these data according to user needs. Main Types of Variables Included The data are fish occurrences and standardised abundances and macroinvertebrate occurrences and densities from US rivers and streams. Metadata describe sampling methodology and locations. Sampling locations can be linked to environmental datasets via coordinates or National Hydrography Dataset Plus V2 Common Identifiers (COMIDs). Spatial Location and Grain The data cover the rivers and streams in the contiguous United States, specifically 8097 unique sampling locations (4772 for fish; 7785 for macroinvertebrates) and includes 12,479 sampling events (7316 for fish; 11,708 for macroinvertebrates). Each sampling location is a georeferenced stream or river location with an associated study reach, which is a defined channel segment that serves as the spatial grain of sampling. Intending to represent all U.S. rivers and streams, 54% of sampling locations were selected using a spatially balanced, probabilistic design. Time Period and Grain The data span 27 years from 1993 to 2019. Sampling events are associated with a single sampling date and single taxa (e.g., fish or macroinvertebrates). Most sites have only been sampled in a single year (72%), although some are resampled across years (28%; range: 2–21 years of sampling). Major Taxa and Level of Measurement The data are fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages. Fish are mostly identified to species, and macroinvertebrates are mostly identified to genus. Sampled organisms represent 685 fish species from 167 genera from 55 families from 26 orders and 1036 macroinvertebrate genera from 218 families from 45 orders. Software Format csv files, R package.

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