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1. In recent years, river restoration science has been searching for biological indicators of improvement in the physical habitats of streams. To date, research has mainly focused on the use of fish and macroinvertebrates as indicators. Despite their importance in aquatic ecosystems, the response of macrophytes to habitat restoration has been rarely studied.

2. We investigated the macrophyte communities of 40 restored river reaches in the lowland and lower mountainous areas of Germany. Each restored reach was compared to an upstream, unrestored reach using a space‐for‐time‐substitution approach. At each reach, a 100 m stretch was surveyed for submerged and emergent macrophytes, recording the quantity, abundance and growth form of each species. Additionally, microhabitat patterns (substrate, depth, current velocity) and channel parameters (mean and bankfull width, number of channel elements …