Twelve thousand recent patellogastropods from a northeastern Pacific latitudinal gradient

Abstract

Body size distributions can vary widely among communities, with important implications for ecological dynamics, energetics, and evolutionary history. Here we present a dataset of body size and shape for 12,035 extant Patellogastropoda (true limpet) specimens from the collections of the University of California Museum of Paleontology, compiled using a novel high-throughput morphometric imaging method. These specimens were collected over the past 150 years at 355 localities along a latitudinal gradient ranging from Alaska to Baja California, Mexico and are presented here with individual images, 2D outline coordinates, and 2D measurements of body size and shape. This dataset provides a resource for assemblage-scale macroecological questions and documents the size and diversity of recent patellogastropods in the northeastern Pacific.

An 800-year record of benthic foraminifer images and 2D morphometrics from the Santa Barbara Basin

“…To address this gap, paleontologists have developed high-throughput approaches for extracting 2D and 3D shape information from photographic images of entire populations or assemblages. One of these approaches, AutoMorph 2 , which is used primarily for the creation of large microfossil datasets, has led to an explosion of big data in micropaleontology, as datasets generated with this method contain thousands to tens of thousands of individuals 3 , 4 . These data have subsequently driven major scientific discoveries, including the identification of a previously unknown potential extinction event in sharks 5 and a morphological diversification event in fishes 6 , 7 .…”

Time Machine Biology: Cross-Timescale Integration of Ecology, Evolution, and Oceanography

“…Automated picking systems that take sieved size fractions, separate them into individual particles, and image each particle may greatly reduce picking times (de Garidel-Thoron et al, 2017;Itaki et al, 2020). With samples that have already been picked and mounted, hundreds or thousands of individual microfossils can be imaged simultaneously in three dimensions and algorithmically parsed into individual images from which basic morphometric traits and features can be automatically extracted and ana-lyzed at the assemblage scale (Beaufort et al, 2014;Elder et al, 2018;Hsiang et al, 2018Hsiang et al, , 2019Kahanamoku et al, 2018).…”