Biological and ecological traits of marine species

Abstract

This paper reviews the utility and availability of biological and ecological traits for marine species so as to prioritise the development of a world database on marine species traits. In addition, the ‘status’ of species for conservation, that is, whether they are introduced or invasive, of fishery or aquaculture interest, harmful, or used as an ecological indicator, were reviewed because these attributes are of particular interest to society. Whereas traits are an enduring characteristic of a species and/or population, a species status may vary geographically and over time. Criteria for selecting traits were that they could be applied to most taxa, were easily available, and their inclusion would result in new research and/or management applications. Numerical traits were favoured over categorical. Habitat was excluded as it can be derived from a selection of these traits. Ten traits were prioritized for inclusion in the most comprehensive open access database on marine species (World Register of Marine Species), namely taxonomic classification, environment, geography, depth, substratum, mobility, skeleton, diet, body size and reproduction. These traits and statuses are being added to the database and new use cases may further subdivide and expand upon them.

Mare Incognitum: A Glimpse into Future Plankton Diversity and Ecology Research

“…Although much progress has been made in understanding which characteristics of plankton determine their growth, reproduction, and survival (Litchman and Klausmeier, 2008;Litchman et al, 2013;Benedetti et al, 2016), information on traits is restricted to a few well-studied species (Barton et al, 2013). Consequently, trait choice often depends on subjective criteria such as the availability of data (Petchey and Gaston, 2006), therefore open access trait databases should be developed for marine species (Costello et al, 2015). In addition, it is challenging to measure multiple functional traits of thousands of species.…”

Recommendations for the Next Generation of Global Freshwater Biological Monitoring Tools

“…The use of invertebrate species functional traits (i.e. inherited characteristics of species, such as the presence of external gills) to monitor diversity change has recently gathered momentum because it allows comparison across spatial and temporal scales, avoiding problems associated with biogeographical uniqueness and endemism (Statzner et al 1997;Mcgill et al 2006;Beche et al 2006;Costello et al 2015). They are also rooted in ecological and evolutionary concepts related to ecological equivalence and convergent evolution, as well as redundancy, which resonate with the body of theory built up around research into the resilience of biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships under environmental change.…”

Uses of Innovative Modeling Tools within the Implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive

“…Traits-based approaches emphasize the functional characteristics of species to study this relationship, and availability of such information for marine species has rapidly increased in recent years, particularly in Europe (Costello et al, 2015). Mechanistic modeling approaches often utilize functional classifications to represent marine organisms (Queirós et al, 2015) providing a route to investigate how ecosystem processes may change under future environmental conditions, despite the complexity inherent to the process (Bremner, 2008;Queirós et al, 2015;van der Linden et al, 2016).…”