School of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, NG11 8NS, UK.
Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Sci Data. 2020 Nov 11;7(1):386. doi: 10.1038/s41597-020-00732-7.
Dispersal is an essential process in population and community dynamics, but is difficult to measure in the field. In freshwater ecosystems, information on biological traits related to organisms' morphology, life history and behaviour provides useful dispersal proxies, but information remains scattered or unpublished for many taxa. We compiled information on multiple dispersal-related biological traits of European aquatic macroinvertebrates in a unique resource, the DISPERSE database. DISPERSE includes nine dispersal-related traits subdivided into 39 trait categories for 480 taxa, including Annelida, Mollusca, Platyhelminthes, and Arthropoda such as Crustacea and Insecta, generally at the genus level. Information within DISPERSE can be used to address fundamental research questions in metapopulation ecology, metacommunity ecology, macroecology and evolutionary ecology. Information on dispersal proxies can be applied to improve predictions of ecological responses to global change, and to inform improvements to biomonitoring, conservation and management strategies. The diverse sources used in DISPERSE complement existing trait databases by providing new information on dispersal traits, most of which would not otherwise be accessible to the scientific community.
扩散是种群和群落动态的一个重要过程，但在野外很难进行测量。在淡水生态系统中，与生物体形态、生活史和行为相关的生物特征信息提供了有用的扩散代理，但对于许多分类群来说，相关信息仍然分散或未发表。我们在一个独特的资源 DISPERSE 数据库中编译了有关欧洲水生大型无脊椎动物的多个与扩散相关的生物特征信息。DISPERSE 包括九个与扩散相关的特征，分为 39 个特征类别，涵盖 480 个分类群，包括环节动物门、软体动物门、扁形动物门和节肢动物门，如甲壳动物和昆虫门，通常在属级水平。DISPERSE 中的信息可用于解决动物种群生态学、集合种群生态学、宏观生态学和进化生态学中的基本研究问题。扩散代理的信息可用于改善对全球变化的生态响应的预测，并为生物监测、保护和管理策略的改进提供信息。DISPERSE 中使用的多种来源通过提供有关扩散特征的新信息来补充现有的特征数据库，这些信息对于科学界来说通常是无法获得的。
