Functional traits
We divided the genera of aquatic insects into nine groups of organisms
with different life history strategies. These groups were formed by
combinations of morphological (body shape and morphological structures
for fixation in the substrate) and reproductive (life cycle length and
potential number of reproductive cycles) functional traits relevant for
the permanence and colonization of insects in streams subject to
environmental disturbances (Poff et al. 2006, Verberk et al. 2013,
Sarremejane et al. 2020). The body shape of the insects collected during
the experiment was divided into depressed and cylindrical bodies. The
morphological structures for fixation were divided into present and
absent. The life cycle length was separated into organisms with
relatively short and long cycles and the potential number of
reproductive cycles was divided into low and high. The classification
into long, short, low or high for functional traits is relative to the
set of aquatic genera species observed in the study, taking into account
the total time of the study (39 days). Thus, when referring to a
long-life cycle, the implication is that an organism of the group has
the potential to survive in the watercourse for the total study period.
The same reasoning can be used for the number of potential reproductive
cycles.