National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Hamilton, New Zealand.
College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia.
Sci Data. 2023 Jul 29;10(1):502. doi: 10.1038/s41597-023-02414-6.
Macrobenthic traits, for example feeding mode, life history, morphology, are increasingly used for determining responses of macrobenthic fauna to environmental change and influences on ecosystem functioning. Yet, trait information is scarce or non-existent in several parts of the world, such as New Zealand. This deficit makes collecting trait data a difficult and time-consuming task, limiting its potential use in trait-based assessments. Here, we present the New Zealand Trait Database (NZTD) for marine benthic invertebrates, the first comprehensive assessment of macrobenthic traits in New Zealand. The NZTD provides trait information for more than 700 macrobenthic taxa, categorised by 18 traits and 77 trait modalities. The NZTD includes five freely downloadable datasets, (1) the macrobenthic trait dataset, with outcomes from a fuzzy coding procedure, (2) the trait source information, (3) the references by taxa, (4) the full references list, and (5) the full taxa list used in the NZTD. Establishing the NZTD closes the trait knowledge gap in New Zealand and facilitates future research applying trait-based approaches to New Zealand's coastal macrofauna.
大型底栖生物的特征，例如摄食方式、生活史、形态，越来越多地被用于确定大型底栖动物对环境变化的响应以及对生态系统功能的影响。然而，在世界上的一些地区，如新西兰，特征信息稀缺或不存在。这种缺陷使得收集特征数据成为一项困难且耗时的任务，限制了其在基于特征的评估中的潜在用途。在这里，我们介绍了新西兰底栖无脊椎动物特征数据库（NZTD），这是对新西兰大型底栖动物特征的首次全面评估。NZTD 为超过 700 种大型底栖生物类群提供了特征信息，这些类群通过 18 种特征和 77 种特征模态进行分类。NZTD 包括五个可自由下载的数据集，（1）大型底栖生物特征数据集，包含模糊编码程序的结果，（2）特征来源信息，（3）按分类群列出的参考文献，（4）完整的参考文献列表，以及（5）NZTD 中使用的完整分类群列表。建立 NZTD 填补了新西兰在特征知识方面的空白，并为未来应用基于特征的方法研究新西兰沿海大型动物群提供了便利。
