Effect of spatial scale on macroinvertebrate assemblages along a Mediterranean river

Although the assembly of stream macroinvertebrates is regulated by environmental heterogeneity at multiple spatial scales, field bioassessment studies that explicitly considered such scale-dependency are rare. Here, we investigated how large scale longitudinal gradients and local microhabitat structure jointly regulate the assembly of macroinvertebrate communities along a Mediterranean river. We compared community composition, metrics and functional feeding traits among three microhabitat categories (grain-size >20 cm; grain-size