MACROINVERTEBRATE COMMUNITIES AND THE CHANGING ITALIAN RIVERS

Rivers have been considered for a long time simply as vehicles transporting water and not as ecosystems. In Italy there has been a massive transformation of the lotic habitats, particularly with regard to the riparian zones and to the quality of waters. The structure and function of the populations and communities of organisms represent indicators of the changes which take place in the environment. Numerous indices, based on the study of the macroinvertebrate communities, have been proposed for evaluating the quality of the river environments in Europe. In Italy, a concrete result of the river monitoring programme, based on analysis of the macroinvertebrate communities, is the biological quality maps of hydrographic networks. The macroinvertebrate communities play an important role in the process of transforming the organic material input and as indicators of the quality and structural and functional integrity of the lotic environment.