High functional diversity in deep-sea fish communities and increasing intra-specific trait variation with increasing latitude

Variation in both inter- and intra-specific traits affect community dynamics, yet we know little regarding the relative importance of external environmental filters vs 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 inter-specific 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 m – 1200 m) and latitudinal gradients (29° – 51° S) in New Zealand waters. Traits were derived from morphological measurements taken directly from footage obtained using Baited Remote Underwater Stereo-Video systems and museum s...

种间性状（inter-specific traits）与种内性状（intra-specific traits）的变异均会影响群落动态（community dynamics），然而，对于塑造群落功能空间（functional space）的外部环境过滤（environmental filters）与内部生物相互作用（biotic interactions）在纬度、海拔或深度等大尺度环境梯度（broad-scale environmental gradients）上的相对重要性，我们知之甚少。我们通过量化功能性状空间（functional trait space）中的种内与种间丰富度、离散度及规律性，研究了海洋鱼类沿深度与纬度梯度的功能α多样性（functional alpha-diversity）的若干关键方面的变化。我们获取了8项与食物获取及运动能力相关的功能性状，并针对新西兰海域内沿大尺度深度（50米–1200米）与纬度梯度（南纬29°–51°）分布的144种海洋辐鳍鱼类，计算了7个互补的功能多样性指数。这些性状源自直接通过诱饵远程水下立体视频系统（Baited Remote Underwater Stereo-Video systems）获取的影像资料及博物馆s...进行的形态测量。