Polytraits: A database on biological traits of marine polychaetes

Abstract

The study of ecosystem functioning – the role which organisms play in an ecosystem – is becoming increasingly important in marine ecological research. The functional structure of a community can be represented by a set of functional traits assigned to behavioural, reproductive and morphological characteristics. The collection of these traits from the literature is however a laborious and time-consuming process, and gaps of knowledge and restricted availability of literature are a common problem. Trait data are not yet readily being shared by research communities, and even if they are, a lack of trait data repositories and standards for data formats leads to the publication of trait information in forms which cannot be processed by computers. This paper describes Polytraits (http://polytraits.lifewatchgreece.eu), a database on biological traits of marine polychaetes (bristle worms, Polychaeta: Annelida). At present, the database contains almost 20,000 records on morphological, behavioural and reproductive characteristics of more than 1,000 marine polychaete species, all referenced by literature sources. All data can be freely accessed through the project website in different ways and formats, both human-readable and machine-readable, and have been submitted to the Encyclopedia of Life for archival and integration with trait information from other sources.

Response of Benthic Macrofauna to Eutrophication in a Mesocosm Experiment: Ecosystem Resilience Prevents Hypoxic Conditions

“…Body Size was based on the maximum body size of each species; Feeding Type indicated the feeding habits of each species; Age at First Reproduction indicated the time required for each species from hatching to first reproduction; and Ecosystem Engineering indicated the type of ecosystem engineering of each species. For the determination of functional traits and modalities of macrofaunal species, the database POLYTRAITS (http://polytraits.lifewatchgreece.eu/) (Faulwetter et al, 2014), which contains information about functional traits for more than 950 different species along with the relevant publications, was used.…”

Resistance of polychaete species and trait patterns to simulated species loss in coastal lagoons

“…Once the traits were selected, information for each species in the dataset was collected from the literature. A dedicated database with a web-based interface had been designed to facilitate data entry and manage the literature references (see Faulwetter et al, 2014 for a detailed description of the data and definition of the traits). Information on the expression of a trait in a species was entered by coding each category within that trait as either "present" or "absent" (or both, if the respective information was found in the literature).…”

Sponges as “living hotels” in Mediterranean marine caves

“…Polychaetes were as- Chintiroglou (1996), Antoniadou and Chintiroglou (2005), Antoniadou (2014), Faulwetter et al (2014) and the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) (www.marinespecies.org). Crustaceans were also assigned to feeding groups according to data from Hazlet (1962), Gambi et al (1992), Birkely and Gulliksen (2003), Tanaka (2007), Voultsiadou et al (2007), Navarro-Barranco et al (2013), Guerra-Garcia et al (2014) and WoRMS.…”