The study of biological traits can therefore be used to elucidate causes and consequences of biodiversity change that would go undetected using traditional analyses of community composition 3, 4. These data may be inspected, used, and augmented by fellow researchers, thus assisting in the wider application of BTA in marine benthic ecology.īiological traits (i.e., morphological, behavioural, and life-history characteristics) determine how species respond to environmental variation and how they influence ecosystem functioning 1, 2. The information was acquired over a decade through an extensive appraisal of relevant sources, including peer-reviewed papers, books, online material and, where necessary, professional judgement. Scores of 0 to 3 are provided to indicate our confidence that taxa exhibit each possible mode of trait expression. Here, we present information on ten key biological traits for over a thousand marine benthic invertebrate taxa surveyed in Northwest Europe (mainly the UK shelf). However, acquiring information on biological traits (i.e., the behavioural, morphological, and reproductive characteristics of taxa) can be extremely time-consuming, especially for large community datasets, thus hindering the successful application of BTA. Biological traits analysis (BTA) provides insight into causes and consequences of biodiversity change that cannot be achieved using traditional taxonomic approaches.
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