Marine life body size database 'key to protecting ocean biodiversity'

A new database detailing the maximum body size of marine life will shed light on the species most at risk from climate change and habitat degradation, paving the way for targeted protection for biodiversity by filling the gaps in the scientific understanding of how size has affected marine animal ecosystems, their evolution, and how they could respond to environmental threats.

Unlike the terrestrial animal kingdom, there are still many gaps in this knowledge left to fill, while where information is known about the size of marine animal species, it has tended to focus on the larger marine animals.

Now, an international group of scientists, including a researcher from the University of Sheffield, has created a database holding information on 85,000 marine animal species. Known as the Marine Organismal Body Size Database or MOBS, it covers a range of species from microscopic zooplankton to whales.

Dr Tom Webb, from the School of Biosciences at Sheffield and one of the researchers involved in the project, said: “Put simply, biologists have tended to focus on bigger organisms. And as a result, a lot of our understanding of how marine food webs and ecosystems work is based on knowledge of these larger species.

“But we also know that small-bodied species are really important: they constitute the majority of biodiversity, and are likely to fulfil unique and important functions within their ecological communities.

“Body size is such a key trait – important in determining how species interact with each other, and how they will react to a changing environment. The more species for which we are able to put a size to a name, the more accurate and representative our predictions about the fate of marine biodiversity can be.”

The scientists have announced the release of the database today (June 5) in the scientific journal Global Ecology and Biogeography. The paper, entitled – MOBS 1.0: A database of interspecific variation in marine organismal body sizes – outlines how the knowledge of the body size of most marine animals remains “conspicuously inadequate”.

This severely limits the ability to predict and deal with how environmental changes, like climate change, overfishing, and habitat destruction, affect these ocean environments.