Ecology, distribution and species diversity of caddisflies (Trichoptera) in Flanders

Trichoptera are the second most diverse group of aquatic insects and the larvae occupy a wide variety of freshwater habitats and ecological functions. Furthermore the order displays a high variability in ecological profiles, hence their importance in different macroinvertebrate based biomonitoring systems, including the MMIF currently used in Flanders. However, apart from family-level data for the purpose of water quality monitoring, little information exists on the occurrence of caddis flies in Flanders, while studies on the ecological requirements of the individual species are completely lacking.
The specific aims of our research therefore are 1) to register the distribution of the Flemish Trichoptera; 2) to identify the different trichopteran species assemblages and to characterize them biologically using indicator species; 3) to determine which environmental gradients most influence the observed species assemblages; and 4) to analyse the relative importance of different spatial scale variables in constraining the Trichoptera distributions.