Data from: When Bergmann's rule fails: evidences of environmental selection pressures shaping phenotypic diversification in a widespread seabird ...

• Main Authors: Nunes, Guilherme Tavares, Mancini, Patrícia Luciano, Bugoni, Leandro
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2016
• Subjects: Allometrics; South Atlantic Ocean; Sula leucogaster; latitudinal gradient
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3k713; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.3k713

Organisms tend to exhibit phenotypes that can be shaped by climate, commonly demonstrating clinal variations along latitudinal gradients. In vertebrates, air temperature plays a major role in shaping body size in both ectothermic and endothermic animals. However, additional small-scale environmental factors can also act as selection pressures in the marine ecosystem (e.g. primary productivity), evidencing multi-scale processes acting on marine organisms. In this study, we tested Bergmann's rule in a widely distributed seabird, the brown booby Sula leucogaster, in addition to evaluating the relationship of sea surface temperature and chlorophyll α with phenotypes. We used traits from a morphometric dataset (culmen, wing chord, and tarsus length) and body mass of 276 brown boobies distributed on six breeding sites along a latitudinal gradient in the South Atlantic Ocean (0–27°S). We found significant differentiation among colonies, but phenotypic similarities were observed between colonies located at the ... : Dryad_ECOG_E02209_Nunes et al._2016Phenotypic data of brown boobies from six colonies along the South Atlantic Ocean; plus latitude, air temperature, and sea surface temperature data.Dryad_ECOG_E02209.xlsx ...