Surface water connection and the macrozoobenthos of two types of floodplains on the upper rhine

Abstract Macrozoobenthos (especially gastropods) abundance data have been used to ordinate sampling stations on two floodplains of the Upper Rhine with different hydraulic regimes: 30 species of gastropods were recorded in the area actively inundated by the Rhine, while backwaters that have not been flooded for over 50 years housed only 19 species. Potamopyrgus antipodarum is a characteristic species of the permanent aquatic biotopes fed by groundwater and connected with other floodplain waters. Small, isolated, and drying‐up former lateral channels and pools, slowly inundated during a flood, are characterized by Planorbis planorbis with Bathyomphalus contortus. Gyralus albus and Valvata cristata are characteristic of small, partly isolated, and partly drying‐up water bodies of the active floodplain, which are inundated rapidly and very turbulently during the flood. Due to restricted hydrological dynamics the waterbodies of the former floodplain were mainly inhabited by ubiquitous species.