TY - JOUR AB - Macroecology provides a novel conceptual framework for the analysis of the distribution and abundance of organisms at very large scales. Its rapid development in recent years has been driven largely by studies of terrestrial taxa, and the vast potential of marine systems to contribute to the macroecological research effort remains largely untapped. International collaborative efforts such as MarBEF have provided fresh impetus to the collation of regional databases of species occurrences, such as the newly available Macroben database of the European soft sediment benthic fauna. Here we provide a first macroecological summary of this unique database. We show that, in common with almost all previously analysed assemblages the frequency distribution of regional site occupancies across species in the Macroben database is strongly right-skewed. More unusually, this right skew remains under logarithmic transformation. There is little evidence for any major differences between higher taxa in this frequency distribution, based on the 8 Classes for which we have sufficient data. Indeed, considerable variation in occupancy persists across the taxonomy, such that most variation occurs between species within genera. There is a weak positive relationship between local population density and regional occupancy across species, but this abundance-occupancy relationship varies considerably both between higher taxa, and between geographical areas. Our results highlight the potential of databases such as Macroben to consolidate macroecological generalities and to test emerging theory. AU - Webb, Thomas J. AU - Aleffi, Ida Floriana AU - Amouroux, Jean-Michel AU - Bachelet, Guy AU - Degraer, Steven AU - Dounas, Constantinos AU - Fleischer, Dirk AU - Grémare, Antoine AU - Herrmann, Marko AU - Hummel, Herman AU - Karakassis, Ioannis AU - Kędra, Monika AU - Kendall, Michael A. AU - Kotwichi, Lech AU - Labrune, Céline AU - Nevrova, Elena L. AU - Occhipinti-Ambrogi, Anna AU - Petrov, Alexei AU - Revkov, Nikolai K. AU - Sardá, Rafael AU - Simboura, Nomiki AU - Speybroeck, Jeroen AU - Van Hoey, Gert AU - Vincx, Magda AU - Whomersley, Paul AU - Willems, Wouter AU - Włodarska-Kowalczuk, Maria CN - 1759 DO - 10.3354/meps07754 J2 - Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. KW - macrobenthos Marko (Diplomarbeit) MarBef benthos L1 - internal-pdf://1759-1965165312/1759.pdf PY - 2009 SN - 1616-1599 SP - 287-296 ST - Macroecology of the European soft sediment benthos: insights from the Macroben database T2 - Marine Ecology Progress Series TI - Macroecology of the European soft sediment benthos: insights from the Macroben database UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.32463 https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?cht=qr&chl=http://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.32463&chs=150x150&choe=UTF-8&chld=L|0 http://www.int-res.com/prepress/m07754.html VL - 382 ID - 1759 ER -