Distribution of fish living modes in European seas

This series of products displays the distributions of the main functional types of benthic and bentho-pelagic fish species derived from a multivariate analysis of eight life history traits. Species data from the International Bottom Trawl Survey data base was combined with a compiled list of life history traits. A multivariate analysis of the life history traits revealed four main living modes. Interpolated maps of the relative distribution of the four living modes were generated in DIVAnd, the n-dimensional Data Interpolating Variational Analysis tool. The first and second groups comprise small species with a short life cycle. Species from group one differ from those from group two by a reduced fecundity compensated by either internal incubation or benthic embryonic development that increase juvenile survival, whereas species from group two are characterised by higher fecundity and juvenile mortality (unattended pelagic eggs). By contrast, groups three and four comprise large and long-lived species. Species from these groups also differ in fecundity, higher in group three, and juvenile survival, higher in group four. Group four is exclusively composed of elasmobranchs (rays, squates and sharks) which either internally incubate a few offspring that they release as adult-miniatures or release large eggs in strongly protective cases fixed on the sea floor.

DIVAnd version 2.1.0 was used to generate the interpolated maps:

Alexander Barth. (2018, September 3). Gher-ulg/DIVAnd.jl: v2.1.0 (Version v2.1.0). Zenodo. Http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1407912