Craig R. McClain
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View article: Too poor to science: How wealth determines who succeeds in STEM
Too poor to science: How wealth determines who succeeds in STEM Open
STEM is profoundly shaped by wealth, yet financial privilege is rarely acknowledged in discussions of diversity and inclusion. Wealth influences participation, persistence, and recognition in science, affecting not just who enters the pipe…
View article: <scp>MOBS</scp> 1.0: A Database of Interspecific Variation in Marine Organismal Body Sizes
<span>MOBS</span> 1.0: A Database of Interspecific Variation in Marine Organismal Body Sizes Open
Motivation Body size is a fundamental trait influencing an organism's life history, ecology, physiology and evolutionary dynamics. While extensive body‐size databases exist for terrestrial vertebrates, equivalent datasets for marine animal…
View article: The Hidden Forests Below: A Review of the Ecology and Evolution of Wood Falls on the Deep Seafloor
The Hidden Forests Below: A Review of the Ecology and Evolution of Wood Falls on the Deep Seafloor Open
Wood falls—parcels of wood that sink to the deep‐sea floor—represent unique and dynamic ecosystems that support a highly diverse and evolutionarily distinct assemblage of faunal communities. The fauna inhabiting wood falls exhibit a high d…
View article: Navigating uncertainty in maximum body size in marine metazoans
Navigating uncertainty in maximum body size in marine metazoans Open
Body size is a fundamental biological trait shaping ecological interactions, evolutionary processes, and our understanding of the structure and dynamics of marine communities on a global scale. Accurately defining a species' body size, des…
View article: Isolating the drivers of the species‐area relationship in experimental habitat islands
Isolating the drivers of the species‐area relationship in experimental habitat islands Open
Aim Considered one of ecology's laws, the species‐area relationship (SAR) is among the most intensively studied ecological phenomena, yet the mechanisms through which the SAR arises and under what circumstances remain poorly understood. He…
View article: Disentangling mechanisms of species–energy relationships in experimental deep‐sea wood falls
Disentangling mechanisms of species–energy relationships in experimental deep‐sea wood falls Open
A multitude of hypotheses have been invoked to explain increases in richness with increases in energy availability. Experiments have the potential to reveal causality, and species–energy experiments have yielded substantial insights into e…
View article: Sunken trees in the deep sea link terrestrial and marine biodiversity
Sunken trees in the deep sea link terrestrial and marine biodiversity Open
Wood in the deep sea serves as a substantial food source in an otherwise barren environment, forming specialized, endemic, and diverse community assemblages. This biodiversity reliance on a terrestrial source creates a linkage by which ant…
View article: Insights from the management of offshore energy resources: Toward an ecosystem-services based management approach for deep-ocean industries
Insights from the management of offshore energy resources: Toward an ecosystem-services based management approach for deep-ocean industries Open
The deep ocean comprises complex ecosystems made up of numerous community and habitat types that provide multiple services that benefit humans. As the industrialization of the deep sea proceeds, a standardized and robust set of methods and…
View article: Functional space expansion driven by transitions between energetically advantageous traits in the deep sea
Functional space expansion driven by transitions between energetically advantageous traits in the deep sea Open
Climate change is shifting community structure and biodiversity on a global scale, in part due to alterations of chemical and thermal energy availability. These changes may impact ecosystem functioning through their influence on functional…
View article: Low-Cost, Deep-Sea Imaging and Analysis Tools for Deep-Sea Exploration: A Collaborative Design Study
Low-Cost, Deep-Sea Imaging and Analysis Tools for Deep-Sea Exploration: A Collaborative Design Study Open
A minuscule fraction of the deep sea has been scientifically explored and characterized due to several constraints, including expense, inefficiency, exclusion, and the resulting inequitable access to tools and resources around the world. T…
View article: Energetic constraints on body-size niches in a resource-limited marine environment
Energetic constraints on body-size niches in a resource-limited marine environment Open
Body size of life on the Earth spans many orders of magnitude, and with it scales the energetic requirements of organisms. Thus, changes in environmental energy should impact community body-size distributions in predictable ways by reshapi…
View article: Anthropogenic disruptions to longstanding patterns of trophic-size structure in vertebrates
Anthropogenic disruptions to longstanding patterns of trophic-size structure in vertebrates Open
View article: Visible name changes promote inequity for transgender researchers
Visible name changes promote inequity for transgender researchers Open
Allowing for invisible name changes is a matter of dignity for trans researchers. This would prevent their own publication record from outing them without their consent. A single, centralized name change request through ORCID iD would alle…
View article: A decade to study deep-sea life
A decade to study deep-sea life Open
View article: A Blueprint for an Inclusive, Global Deep-Sea Ocean Decade Field Program
A Blueprint for an Inclusive, Global Deep-Sea Ocean Decade Field Program Open
The ocean plays a crucial role in the functioning of the Earth System and in the provision of vital goods and services. The United Nations (UN) declared 2021–2030 as the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. The Roadmap f…
View article: Reply to: Ecological variables for deep-ocean monitoring must include microbiota and meiofauna for effective conservation
Reply to: Ecological variables for deep-ocean monitoring must include microbiota and meiofauna for effective conservation Open
View article: A Synthesis of Deep Benthic Faunal Impacts and Resilience Following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
A Synthesis of Deep Benthic Faunal Impacts and Resilience Following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Open
The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill significantly impacted the northern Gulf of Mexico (nGoM) deep benthos (>125 m water depth) at different spatial scales and across all community size and taxa groups including microbes, foraminifera, m…
View article: Metabolic Niches and Biodiversity: A Test Case in the Deep Sea Benthos
Metabolic Niches and Biodiversity: A Test Case in the Deep Sea Benthos Open
The great anthropogenic alterations occurring to carbon availability in the oceans necessitate an understanding of the energy requirements of species and how changes in energy availability may impact biodiversity. The deep-sea floor is cha…
View article: Ecological variables for developing a global deep-ocean monitoring and conservation strategy
Ecological variables for developing a global deep-ocean monitoring and conservation strategy Open
View article: Alligators in the abyss: The first experimental reptilian food fall in the deep ocean
Alligators in the abyss: The first experimental reptilian food fall in the deep ocean Open
The high respiration rates of the deep-sea benthos cannot be sustained by known carbon supply pathways alone. Here, we investigate moderately-sized reptilian food falls as a potential alternative carbon pathway. Specifically, three individ…
View article: Evaluating the influences of temperature, primary production, and evolutionary history on bivalve growth rates
Evaluating the influences of temperature, primary production, and evolutionary history on bivalve growth rates Open
Organismal metabolic rates reflect the interaction of environmental and physiological factors. Thus, calcifying organisms that record growth history can provide insight into both the ancient environments in which they lived and their own p…
View article: Persistent and substantial impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on deep-sea megafauna
Persistent and substantial impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on deep-sea megafauna Open
The Deepwater Horizon spill is one of the largest environmental disasters with extensive impacts on the economic and ecological health of the Gulf of Mexico. Surface oil and coastal impacts received considerable attention, but the far larg…
View article: Likes, comments, and shares of marine organism imagery on Facebook
Likes, comments, and shares of marine organism imagery on Facebook Open
Several calls to action urge scientists and science communicators to engage more with online communities. While these calls have been answered by a high percentage of scientists and science communicators online, it often remains unclear wh…
View article: Peer Review #1 of "Shifting headlines? Size trends of newsworthy fishes (v0.2)"
Peer Review #1 of "Shifting headlines? Size trends of newsworthy fishes (v0.2)" Open
The shifting baseline syndrome describes a gradual lowering of human cognitive baselines, as each generation accepts a lower standard of resource abundance or size as the new norm.There is strong empirical evidence of declining trends of a…
View article: Peer Review #1 of "Shifting headlines? Size trends of newsworthy fishes (v0.1)"
Peer Review #1 of "Shifting headlines? Size trends of newsworthy fishes (v0.1)" Open
The shifting baseline syndrome describes a gradual lowering of human cognitive baselines, as each generation accepts a lower standard of resource abundance or size as the new norm.There is strong empirical evidence of declining trends of a…
View article: Supplementary material from "Persistent and substantial impacts of the Deep-water Horizon oil spill on deep-sea megafauna"
Supplementary material from "Persistent and substantial impacts of the Deep-water Horizon oil spill on deep-sea megafauna" Open
The Deep-water Horizon spill is one of the largest environmental disasters with extensive impacts on the economic and ecological health of the Gulf of Mexico. Surface oil and coastal impacts received considerable attention, but the far lar…
View article: Energetic increases lead to niche packing in deep-sea wood falls
Energetic increases lead to niche packing in deep-sea wood falls Open
Mechanisms leading to variation in diversity over energetic gradients continue to challenge ecologists. Changes in diversity may reflect the environmental capacity to support species' coexistence through increased niche packing or niche sp…
View article: Energetic tradeoffs control the size distribution of aquatic mammals
Energetic tradeoffs control the size distribution of aquatic mammals Open
Significance The reasons why aquatic mammals exhibit larger average sizes than their terrestrial relatives have long been debated. Most previous hypotheses have focused on releases from terrestrial constraints on large sizes. Through the a…
View article: Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON)
Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) Open
LUMCON promotes, facilitates, and conducts research and education in marine and coastal sciences relevant to the sustainability of coastal and marine environments in the Gulf of Mexico. In this aim, LUMCON strives to provide innovative mod…
View article: Woodfalls (Wood Fall project)
Woodfalls (Wood Fall project) Open