Mediterranean nekton traits: distribution, relationships and significance for marine ecology monitoring and management.

ABSTRACT: Biological traits are increasingly used in order to study aspects of ecology as they are related to the organisms' fitness. Here we analyze a dataset of 23 traits regarding the life cycle, distribution, ecology and behavior of 235 nektonic species of the Mediterranean Sea in order to evaluate the distribution of traits, identify rare ones, detect relationships between trait pairs and identify species functional groups. Trait relationships were tested using correlation and non-linear regression for continuous traits, parametric and non-parametric inference tests for pairs of continuous-categorical traits and cooccurrence testing for categorical traits. The findings have significant implications concerning the potential effects of climate change (e.g., through the relationships of the trait

SUBMITTER: Tzanatos E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7025708 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature