TY - JOUR TI - Global gradients in intertidal species richness and functional groups AU - Thyrring, Jakob AU - Peck, Lloyd S A2 - Weigel, Detlef A2 - Fenberg, Phillip A2 - Benedetti-Cecchi, Lisandro VL - 10 PY - 2021 DA - 2021/03/19 SP - e64541 C1 - eLife 2021;10:e64541 DO - 10.7554/eLife.64541 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.64541 AB - Whether global latitudinal diversity gradients exist in rocky intertidal α-diversity and across functional groups remains unknown. Using literature data from 433 intertidal sites, we investigated α-diversity patterns across 155° of latitude, and whether local-scale or global-scale structuring processes control α-diversity. We, furthermore, investigated how the relative composition of functional groups changes with latitude. α-Diversity differed among hemispheres with a mid-latitudinal peak in the north, and a non-significant unimodal pattern in the south, but there was no support for a tropical-to-polar decrease in α-diversity. Although global-scale drivers had no discernible effect, the local-scale drivers significantly affected α-diversity, and our results reveal that latitudinal diversity gradients are outweighed by local processes. In contrast to α-diversity patterns, species richness of three functional groups (predators, grazers, and suspension feeders) declined with latitude, coinciding with an inverse gradient in algae. Polar and tropical intertidal data were sparse, and more sampling is required to improve knowledge of marine biodiversity. KW - α-diversity KW - algae KW - latitudinal diversity gradient KW - littoral KW - predation KW - rocky shore JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -