Land-use influence on the functional organization of Afrotropical macroinvertebrate assemblages

•Agriculture alter water and habitat quality and coarse particulate organic matter in streams.•Macroinvertebrate functional feedings groups (FFGs) respond differently to different land use types.•Flow reduction amplifies effects of land use change on stream macroinvertebrates.•Richness-based FFGs metrics are the least predictive to land use change. Studies investigating the effects of human activities on the functional organization of macroinvertebrate communities in tropical streams and rivers are very limited, despite these areas witnessing the greatest loss of natural forests globally. We investigated changes in taxon richness, numerical abundance and biomass of macroinvertebrate functional feeding groups (FFGs) in streams draining different land-use types in the Sosiani-Kipkaren River in western Kenya. Twenty-one sites in river reaches categorized as forested, mixed, urban or agricultural were sampled during the dry and wet seasons. Collected macroinvertebrates were identified to the lowest taxon possible (mainly genus) and classified into five major FFGs; collector-gatherers, collector-filterers, scrapers, predators and shredders. There were significant (p