A new dawn for chironomids in freshwater biomonitoring?

Abstract

Non-biting midges are extraordinarily well-suited as environmental indicators in freshwater biomonitoring; numerous studies by those in our community support this claim. Nevertheless, our favorite organisms are excluded from many national monitoring programs due to their complex taxonomy, insufficiently described immatures, and resource demanding identification. For example, only a handful of European countries regularly use chironomid species in classification of water body ecological status for the EU Water Framework Directive (Weigand et al. 2019, supplement 2).