A closer look at the main actors of Neotropical floodplain food webs: functional classification and niche overlap of dominant benthic invertebrates in a floodplain lake of Paraná River

ABSTRACT Functional classification of animals is necessary to enhance the predictive power of food web models. However, while there is a large database for functional classification of benthic invertebrates (Functional Feeding Groups, FFG) in the temperate zone, the attribution of individual species of riverine invertebrates is still in its infancies in the Neotropical Region. Different authors hypothesized that diet breadth was larger in the Tropics, however detailed analysis are scarce. In the present study we aimed at classifying dominant benthic taxa of the Middle Paraná River floodplain ...