Traits provide key ecological information that can be applied to understanding the mechanisms that drive community assembly and persistence. Trait information can provide important insights into the responses of macroinvertebrate communities to stressors, including pollutants and climatic extremes. Outside of Europe and North America, the use of stream macroinvertebrate traits has generally been hindered by the lack of a national database assigning traits to taxa. Here, we present an integrated database for Australian stream macroinvertebrates, which brings together data from multiple jurisdictions to facilitate the use of traits in both theoretical and applied studies. The Australian trait database provides new opportunities for research and application in freshwater management.


Traits database Version 1.1


Below are three versions of the database. One is an Excel file (.xlsx), another consists of 5 text files and finally a version formatted as two csv files and one R script file to merge these two files in R.

Please note that all these versions of the database contain the same data, just in different formats.

Excel format


Text file format


csv and R script format


Further information

An associated journal article, An integrated database of stream macroinvertebrate traits for Australia:concept and application, can be accessed via this link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106280
The paper describes the database and discusses its applications as well as the challenges and limitations of this and other trait databases.

When using this database, please acknowledge it by citing this journal article.