High functional diversity in deep-sea fish communities and increasing intraspecific trait variation with increasing latitude.

ABSTRACT: Variation in both inter- and intraspecific traits affects community dynamics, yet we know little regarding the relative importance of external environmental filters versus internal biotic interactions that shape the functional space of communities along broad-scale environmental gradients, such as latitude, elevation, or depth. We examined changes in several key aspects of functional alpha diversity for marine fishes along depth and latitude gradients by quantifying intra- and interspecific richness, dispersion, and regularity in functional trait space. We derived eight functional traits related to food acquisition and locomotion and calculated seven complementary indices of functional diversity for 144 species of marine ray-finned fishes along large-scale depth (50-1200 m) and latitudinal

SUBMITTER: Myers EMV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8328419 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature