Data and R scripts for "Historical comparisons of body size are sensitive to data availability and ecological context" accepted for publication in Ecology
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Historical comparisons of body size often lack pertinent details, including information on the sampling protocol and relevant environmental covariates that influence body size. Moreover, historical estimates of body size that rely on museum specimens may be biased towards larger size classes due to collector preferences, and thus size thresholds have been used to focus attention on maximum body size. We tested the consequences of sampling design, environmental covariates, and size thresholds on inferences of body size change using field-contextualized historical records, rather than museum specimens. In 2014-2015, we revisited historical (1947-1963) size-frequency distributions of three gastropods (Tegula funebralis, Lottia digitalis / L. austrodigitalis, Littorina keenae) in the context of population density and tidal height. In general, snails declined in size. However, our inferences regarding body size decline were tempered when the variation between sampling units was taken into consideration, resulting in greater uncertainty around the estimate of proportional change in body size. Snail size was correlated with population density and tidal height, and these relationships varied over time. Finally, the magnitude and direction of body size change varied with the amount of data available for analysis, demonstrating that the use of size thresholds can lead to incomplete conclusions.
Description
| Type of resource | software, multimedia |
|---|---|
| Date created | April 15, 2020 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Elahi, Robin | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Miller, Luke | |
| Author | Litvin, Steven |
Subjects
| Subject | climate change |
|---|---|
| Subject | population |
| Subject | ectothermic |
| Subject | size structure |
| Subject | temperature |
| Subject | rocky intertidal |
| Subject | gastropods |
| Genre | Dataset |
Bibliographic information
| Related Publication | Elahi, Robin, Miller, Luke P., and Litvin, Steven Y. 2020. Historical comparisons of body size are sensitive to data availability and ecological context. Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3101 |
|---|---|
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/bs528mw1630 |
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Elahi, Robin, Miller, Luke P. and Steven Y. Litvin. (2020). Data and R scripts for "Historical comparisons of body size are sensitive to data availability and ecological context" accepted for publication in Ecology. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/bs528mw1630
Collection
Stanford Research Data
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- Contact
- elahi@stanford.edu
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