Mass mortality events (MMEs) are decimating populations and compromising key ecosystem functions around the globe. One taxon particularly vulnerable to MMEs is freshwater bivalve mollusks. This group has important ecosystem engineering capacities and includes highly threatened and highly invasive taxa. Thus, MMEs of freshwater bivalves have important implications for conservation and ecosystems. Despite this, little is known a...

Heavily modified water bodies (HMWB) have been seriously affected by human activities and natural processes promoting their imbalance, and impacting their functioning and biodiversity. This study explores a new approach of monitoring and assessing water quality in Mediterranean reservoirs using phytoplankton communities across a disturbance gradient, according to water framework directive. Phytoplankton and environmental data...

Aim Freshwater mussels are among the most threatened taxa in the world, partially due to the dependence on fish hosts to complete their life cycle. Knowledge about the role of environmental and biotic drivers in determining mussels' distribution is currently lacking. We aimed to assess the role of environmental and biotic drivers in determining the distribution of mussels and their fish hosts and to test if co‐occurrence patte...

Europe has a long history of human pressure on freshwater ecosystems. As pressure continues to grow and new threats emerge, there is an urgent need for conservation of freshwater biodiversity and its ecosystem services. However, whilst some taxonomic groups, mainly vertebrates, have received a disproportionate amount of attention and funds, other groups remain largely off the public and scientific radar. Freshwater mussels (Bi...

Theidentification of key biodiversity areas (KBA) was initiated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2004 to overcome taxonomic biases in the selection of important areas for conservation, including freshwater ecosystems. Since then, several KBAs have been identified mainly based on the presence of trigger species (i.e., species that trigger either the vulnerability and or the irreplaceability criterion and...

Anthropogenic freshwater habitats may provide undervalued prospects for long‐term conservation as part of species conservation planning. This fundamental, but overlooked, issue requires attention considering the pace that humans have been altering natural freshwater ecosystems and the accelerated levels of biodiversity decline in recent decades. We compiled 709 records of freshwater mussels (Bivalvia, Unionida) inhabiting a br...

This study focused on the use of sound playbacks as acoustic deterrents to direct native potamodromous migratory species away from all kind of traps. The effects of two acoustic treatments, a repeated sine sweep up to 2 kHz (sweep‐up stimulus) and an intermittent 140 Hz tone, were tested in three fish species native to Iberia: Salmo trutta , Pseudochondrostoma duriense and Luciobarbus bocagei . In contrast with S. trutta , the...