Use of invertebrate traits for the biomonitoring of European large rivers: the effects of sampling effort on genus richness and functional diversity

Summary 1. Studies on biodiversity and ecosystem function require considering metrics for accurately describing the functional diversity of communities. The number of taxa (richness) is commonly used to characterise biological diversity. The disadvantage of richness as a measure of biological diversity is that all taxa are taken into account on an equal basis regardless of their abundance, their biological characteristics or their function in...