Many marine benthic invertebrates pass through a planktonic larval stage whereas others spend their entire lifetimes in benthic habitats. Recent studies indicate that non-planktonic species show relatively greater fine-scale patchiness than do planktonic species, but the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. One hypothesis for such a difference is that larval dispersal enhances the connectivity of populations and buffers population fluctuations and reduces local extinction risk, consequently increasing patch occupancy rate and decreasing spatial patchiness. If this mechanism does indeed play a significant role, then the distribution of non-planktonic species should be more aggregated-both temporally and spatially-than the distribution of species with a planktonic larval stage. To test this prediction, we compared (1) both the spatial and the temporal abundance-occupancy relationships and (2) both the spatial and the temporal mean-variance relationships of population size across species of rocky intertidal gastropods with differing dispersive traits from the Pacific coast of Japan. We found that, compared to planktonic species, non-planktonic species exhibited (1) a smaller occupancy rate for any given level of mean population size and (2) greater variations in population size, both spatially and temporally. This suggests that the macroecological patterns observed in this study (i.e., the abundance-occupancy relationships and mean-variance relationships of population size across species) were shaped by the effect of larval dispersal dampening population fluctuation, which works over both space and time.While it has been widely assumed that larval dispersal enhances population fluctuations, larval dispersal may in fact enhance the connectively of populations and buffer population fluctuations and reduce local extinction risks.

Many biodiversity databases have been launched in recent years. Various species of certain developed taxa, such as fish, quadrupeds, and butterflies, are currently able to be photographically identified, in particular for ecological and biogeographic studies. However, there are problems that result from registration of images from countries with different primary languages. In this study, we provide an example of the challenges associated with registering fish images, specifically one case that has functioned as a voucher for the range extension of Labrisomus jenkinsi (Heller and Snodgrass, ) (Perciformes: Labrisomidae) from the Galapagos Islands to the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The fish image database in question belongs to a Japanese public museum [the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History; the online version (FishPix) is provided by the museum and the National Museum of Nature and Science]. We propose that there are problems associated with image registration caused by using different languages. Furthermore, these challenges should be a common subject for discussion among museums as they attempt to accumulate biodiversity data from citizens in the future.