Data from: Species richness and composition of Caribbean aquatic entomofauna: role of climate, island area, and distance to mainland. Cineas, Chevelie, UniversitŽ dÕEtat dÕHaiti Doledec, Sylvain, Univ Lyon, UniversitŽ Claude Bernard Lyon 1, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0280-7866 chevelie.cineas@gmail.com, sylvain.doledec@univ-lyon1.fr Publication date: May, 2022 Publisher: Dryad https://doi:10.5061/dryad.vhhmgqntx Data were assembled during lock-down and cover the Carribbean islands in the context of a co-tutelle PhD thesis (Chevelie Cineas). The data analysis work was performed under the auspice of the EUR H2OÕLyon (ANR-17-EURE-0018) of UniversitŽ de Lyon (UdL) within the program ÔInvestissements d'AvenirÕ operated by the French National Research Agency (ANR). Sharing/Access information No Licenses/restrictions placed on the data Links to publications that cite or use the data: Species richness and composition of Caribbean aquatic entomofauna: role of climate, island area, and distance to mainland. ÒDoiÓ not yet available. Data derived were derived from a literature review. This literature is listed in three available appendices (Appendix S1_Cineas_DolŽdec.docx, Appendix S2_Cineas_DolŽdec.docx, Appendix S3_Cineas_DolŽdec.docx). Citation Cineas & DolŽdec (2022), Data from: Species richness and composition of Caribbean aquatic entomofauna: role of climate, island area, and distance to mainland, Dryad, Dataset, https://doi:10.5061/dryad.vhhmgqntx Data Files Caribbean_stream_invertebrates.csv: Whole database, which provide for each taxon collected in a island: island name (Islands), island code (Code_Ile), island area (Area), maximum elevation (Max_Elevation), prevailing winds (Prevailing_Winds), distance of the island from North America (Dist_North_America), distance of the island from South America (Dist_South_America ), distance of the island from Central America (Dist_Central_America), tectonic origin (Origin), age of predominant bedrock (Age_of_Predominant_Bedrock), type of bedrock surface (Surface_Bedrock), climate type (Climate), maximum air temperature (TMax), minimum air temperature (TMin), annual average air temperature (Annual_Temperature), annual average rainfall (Annual_Rainfall), maximum rainfall (Rainfall_Max), minimum rainfall (Rainfall_Min), number of permanent streams (Permanent_streams), taxonomy of the species (Order, Family, Genus, Species_1), taxa used in the analysis (Species_2) Appendix S1_Cineas_DolŽdec.docx: List of references and websites used to elaborate the database of aquatic Caribbean insects. Appendix S2_Cineas_DolŽdec.docx: Number of documents considered for each freshwater invertebrate group in each GCU (O=Odonata, C=Coleoptera, T= Trichoptera, E= Ephemeroptera, Di= Diptera, He= Hemiptera, Hy= Hymenoptera, Le = Lepidoptera, Me=Megaloptera, Pl= Plecoptera) Appendix S3_Cineas_DolŽdec.docx: List of documents and websites used to elaborate the environmental data set. Abstract From a literature review, we constructed a database yielding comprising >1000 freshwater insect species (especially Odonata, Coleoptera, Trichoptera, Ephemeroptera; OCTE) in 26 Geographical Caribbean Units (GCU) and quantified local filtering (climate heterogeneity, annual rainfall, annual temperature), geography (area, distance from the mainland) and emergence age as a proxy for island ontogeny. We investigated the relative role of these variables on the species richness, endemism and composition of the units using island species-area relationship (ISAR), generalised linear modelling (GLM) and nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS). In addition, we analysed the spatial patterns of species richness and composition using MoranÕs I index. ISAR generally demonstrated one or two thresholds and continuous or discontinuous responses according to OCTE groups. A small island effect could be detected for Trichoptera and Ephemeroptera richness, whereas Odonata and Coleoptera only demonstrated differences in slope between smaller and larger GCUs. Area, climate heterogeneity, maximal rainfall and distance from mainland were major drivers of species composition in GCUs, whereas local climate variables were of main importance for the endemism rate. Due to the potential complexity of the Caribbean island ontogeny, middle-stage islands had an expected higher freshwater invertebrate richness than younger ones but an unexpected lower richness compared to older islands. Finally, the degree of colonization of islands was linked to the dispersal ability of species, with Odonata and Coleoptera having larger distribution ranges than Trichoptera and Ephemeroptera, which were more restricted by their comparatively narrow ecological niches. The high endemism (>60%) found in the Caribbean freshwaters calls for more conservation effort in managing these highly threatened freshwater environments. Methodological information Since there is a large number of very small islands in the Caribbean archipelago, we combined groups of islands into GCU. For example, we considered Cuba and its 4,194 satellite islands and islets as one GCU. Likewise, the Bahamas, which comprises 700 secondary islands, was considered a single GCU. Finally, twin islands such as St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda were considered together. In total, we retained 26 GCUs (omitting Anguilla and the Turks and Caicos Islands due to a lack of available). We gathered species inventories on each island based on research works including doctoral theses and scientific papers, Proceedings and United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) reports and checklists using ÒCaribbean aquatic insectsÓ as keywords. Several online databases (e.g., https://www.odonatacentral.org; https://sites.google.com/site/distributionaldatabase) or web portal (e.g., https://www.gbif.org; https://www.dutchcaribbeanspecies.org, especially for ARU, BON, CUR, SAB, STE and STM) were also considered to complete our database. Part of the gathered information was verified by a leading scientist (F. Meurgey, pers. com.). References that were used to gather data are available in Appendix S1. Ten orders of aquatic insects were considered: Coleoptera, Diptera, Ephemeroptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Megaloptera, Odonata, Plecoptera and Trichoptera. Appendix S2 gives the number of documents that were available for each insect group and each GCU. The validity of the name of each species was checked using the Interagency Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) to avoid synonymous species names, and we checked whether each species lived in aquatic habitats with the Catalogue of Life (https://www.catalogueoflife.org/) and the Dutch Caribbean Species Register (https://www.dutchcaribbeanspecies.org). For each GCU, we also documented (see Appendix S3 for references) unit area, the distance of each unit from the mainland (North, South and Central America), the maximum elevation, climate, annual average, minimum and maximum air temperature, annual average, minimum and maximum rainfall, number of permanent streams, and the approximate period of emergence of units.