Data from: Sizing ocean giants: patterns of intraspecific size variation in marine megafauna ...

What are the greatest sizes that the largest marine megafauna obtain? This is a simple question with a difficult and complex answer. Many of the largest-sized species occur in the world’s oceans. For many of these, rarity, remoteness, and quite simply the logistics of measuring these giants has made...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: McClain, Craig R., Balk, Meghan A., Benfield, Mark C., Branch, Trevor A., Chen, Catherine, Cosgrove, James, Dove, Alistair D. M., Gaskins, Leo C., Helm, Rebecca, Hochberg, Frederick G., Lee, Frank B., Marshall, Andrea, McMurray, Steven E., Schanche, Caroline, Stone, Shane N., Thaler, Andrew D., Helm, Rebecca R.
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: Dryad 2015
Subjects:
Cetorhinus maximus
Mirounga leonina
Hexanchus griseus
Architeuthis dux
Dermochelys coriacea
Manta birostris
Marine
Modern
Physeter macrocephalus
Mola mola
megafauna
Tridacna gigas
Regalecus glesne
Odobenus rosmarus
Balaenoptera musculus
Bathynomus giganteus
Carcharodon carcharias
Xestospongia muta
Somniosus microcephalus
Syrinx aruanus
Enteroctopus dofleini
Giganteus
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.411mv
https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.411mv
Description
Summary:What are the greatest sizes that the largest marine megafauna obtain? This is a simple question with a difficult and complex answer. Many of the largest-sized species occur in the world’s oceans. For many of these, rarity, remoteness, and quite simply the logistics of measuring these giants has made obtaining accurate size measurements difficult. Inaccurate reports of maximum sizes run rampant through the scientific literature and popular media. Moreover, how intraspecific variation in the body sizes of these animals relates to sex, population structure, the environment, and interactions with humans remains underappreciated. Here, we review and analyze body size for 25 ocean giants ranging across the animal kingdom. For each taxon we document body size for the largest known marine species of several clades. We also analyze intraspecific variation and identify the largest known individuals for each species. Where data allows, we analyze spatial and temporal intraspecific size variation. We also provide ... : Sizing Ocean Giants Data and ScriptsBalaenoptera musculus and Physeter macrocephalus data were provided by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). These data are not included in sizingoceangiants.zip, and must be obtained from IWC directly.sizingoceangiants.zip ...

Similar Items