www.freshwaterecology.info - An online tool that unifies, standardises and codifies more than 20,000 European freshwater organisms and their ecological preferences

Species' ecological preferences are progressively important for understanding distribution patterns, for conserving biodiversity or for assessing and evaluating the status of freshwater ecosystems. Comprehensive databases compiling species traits are already established in the terrestrial realm, but widely missing in freshwater science. We established a database for European taxa of five aquatic organism groups by compiling information on taxonomy, ecology and distribution based on extensive literature surveys, which were performed by experts for the targeted organism groups. The database includes fishes (654 taxa/21 ecological preferences), macro-invertebrates (8586/40), macrophytes (1083/5), diatoms (8868/36) and phytoplankton (1976/4). It is available online with various options and tools for finding information and has currently over 800 users. The reviewed literature as well as examples given in this paper, highlight the importance of the general availability of knowledge on ecological preferences for various aspects in ecological assessment. Freshwaterecology.info is considered a service for basic research, applied scientists, water managers or other stakeholders. It serves as base for bioassessment and monitoring. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.