Dr Tom Webb
School of Biosciences
Senior Lecturer
t.j.webb@sheffield.ac.uk
Room C215, Alfred Denny Building
Full contact details
Dr Tom Webb
School of Biosciences
Room C215
Alfred Denny Building
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TN
School of Biosciences
Room C215
Alfred Denny Building
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TN
- Profile
-
- Senior Lecturer, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield (2022 - present)
- Lecturer, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield (2017- 2022)
- Royal Society University Research Fellow, Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield (2008 - 2017)
- Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield (2007 - 2008)
- NERC Postdoctoral Research Associate, Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield (2006 - 2007)
- UKPopNet Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of York (2004 - 2006)
- NERC Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Oxford (2003 - 2004)
- Conservation International Postdoctoral Research Associate, Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield (2002 - 2003)
- Research interests
-
My primary research interest is in the macroecology of marine ecosystems. Particularly, in how and why marine biodiversity is unevenly distributed in space and time. This interest has led me into the realm of biodiversity informatics - using large databases of different facets of marine diversity in order to synthesise the state of knowledge of the world's oceans. My research is currently focused on four major areas:
- Global patterns and trends in marine biodiversity - interrogating, linking, and extracting trends from major biodiversity databases using novel statistical methods
- Comparative analysis of marine and terrestrial ecosystems - to what extent does ecological theory generalise across realms?
- Dynamics of UK marine systems - integrating data and models to understand the provision of ecosystem services from UK seas
- The role of energy in driving patterns of deep sea biodiversity
- Publications
-
Show: Featured publications All publications
Featured publications
Journal articles
- Improving the visual communication of environmental model projections. Scientific Reports, 11.
- What’s hot and what’s not: making sense of biodiversity ‘hotspots’. Global Change Biology, 27(3), 521-535.
- Linking dimensions of data on global marine animal diversity. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 375(1814). View this article in WRRO
- Marine conservation : towards a multi-layered network approach. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 375(1814).
- Occupancy‐derived thermal affinities reflect known physiological thermal limits of marine species. Ecology and Evolution, 10(14), 7050-7061.
- Metabolic niches and biodiversity : a test case in the deep sea benthos. Frontiers in Marine Science, 7.
- An assessment of the state of nature in the United Kingdom: A review of findings, methods and impact. Ecological Indicators, 94(1), 226-236. View this article in WRRO
- Increased Energy Differentially Increases Richness and Abundance of Optimal Body Sizes in Deep-Sea Wood-Falls. Ecology, 99(1), 184-195. View this article in WRRO
- Sized-based indicators show depth-dependent change over time in the deep sea. ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil, 75(1), 113-121. View this article in WRRO
- Abundance-Occupancy Relationships in Deep Sea Wood Fall Communities. Ecography, 40(11), 1339-1347. View this article in WRRO
- Functional, size and taxonomic diversity of fish along a depth gradient in the deep sea. PeerJ, 4. View this article in WRRO
- Conservation: Threatened by Luxury.. Current Biology, 26(12), R498-R500.
- Quantifying heterogeneous responses of fish community size structure using novel combined statistical techniques. Global Change Biology. View this article in WRRO
- A trait-based metric sheds new light on the nature of the body size–depth relationship in the deep sea. Journal of Animal Ecology, 85(2), 427-436.
- New Approaches to Marine Conservation Through the Scaling Up of Ecological Data.. Annual Review of Marine Science, 8, 435-461. View this article in WRRO
- Global Patterns of Extinction Risk in Marine and Non-marine Systems. Current Biology, 25(4), 506-511. View this article in WRRO
- Direct and indirect effects of climate and fishing on changes in coastal ecosystem services: a historical perspective from the North Sea. Regional Environmental Change.
- Marine and terrestrial ecology: unifying concepts, revealing differences.. Trends Ecol Evol, 27(10), 535-541.
- Characterizing abundance-occupancy relationships: There is no artefact. Global Ecology and Biogeography.
- Extensive gaps and biases in our knowledge of a well-known fauna: Implications for integrating biological traits into macroecology. Global Ecology and Biogeography.
- The birds and the seas: body size reconciles differences in the abundance-occupancy relationship across marine and terrestrial vertebrates. OIKOS, 120(4), 537-549.
- Biodiversity's big wet secret: the global distribution of marine biological records reveals chronic under-exploration of the deep pelagic ocean.. PLoS One, 5(8), e10223.
- Life history mediates large-scale population ecology in marine benthic taxa. MAR ECOL-PROG SER, 396, 293-306.
- Macroecology of the European soft sediment benthos: insights from the MacroBen database. MAR ECOL-PROG SER, 382, 287-296.
- Conversations in conservation: revealing and dealing with language differences in environmental conflicts. J APPL ECOL, 45(4), 1198-1204.
- Only half right: species with female-biased sexual size dimorphism consistently break Rensch's rule.. PLoS One, 2(9), e897.
- Abundance-occupancy dynamics in a human dominated environment: linking interspecific and intraspecific trends in British farmland and woodland birds.. J Anim Ecol, 76(1), 123-134.
- Coincident scales of forest feedback on climate and conservation in a diversity hot spot. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 273(1587), 757-765.
- Forest cover-rainfall relationships in a biodiversity hotspot: The Atlantic forest of Brazil. ECOL APPL, 15(6), 1968-1983.
- Heritability of geographic range sizes revisited: A reply to Hunt et al.. AM NAT, 166(1), 136-143.
- On the heritability of geographic range sizes.. Am Nat, 161(4), 553-566.
- Geographic range size and evolutionary age in birds.. Proc Biol Sci, 267(1455), 1843-1850.
- Refocusing multiple stressor research around the targets and scales of ecological impacts. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 5(11), 1478-1489.
All publications
Journal articles
- Characterizing rocky intertidal biodiversity using environmental DNA metabarcoding from local to national scales. Environmental DNA, 7(5). View this article in WRRO
- Fish functional groups of the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Earth System Science Data, 17(6), 2447-2462. View this article in WRRO
- MOBS 1.0: A database of interspecific variation in marine organismal body sizes. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 34(6). View this article in WRRO
- FISHGLOB: A collaborative infrastructure to bridge the gap between scientific monitoring and marine biodiversity conservation. Conservation Science and Practice, 7(6). View this article in WRRO
- Realising the potential of interoperable data products to improve the outlook for marine biodiversity: lessons from the European marine observation and data network. Marine Policy, 173. View this article in WRRO
- Size bias in the documentation of marine biodiversity. Oikos, 2025(1).
- Navigating uncertainty in maximum body size in marine metazoans. Ecology and Evolution, 14(6). View this article in WRRO
- Limited complementarity of functional and taxonomic diversity in Chilean benthic marine invertebrates. Diversity and Distributions, 30(6). View this article in WRRO
- Revealing uncertainty in the status of biodiversity change. Nature, 628, 788-794. View this article in WRRO
- Protected areas support more species than unprotected areas in Great Britain, but lose them equally rapidly. Biological Conservation, 278, 109884-109884.
- Biological trait profiles discriminate between native and non-indigenous marine invertebrates. Aquatic Invasions, 16(4), 571-600.
- Improving the visual communication of environmental model projections. Scientific Reports, 11.
- What’s hot and what’s not: making sense of biodiversity ‘hotspots’. Global Change Biology, 27(3), 521-535.
- Correction to ‘Marine conservation: towards a multi-layered network approach’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 376(1817), 20200452-20200452.
- Linking dimensions of data on global marine animal diversity. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 375(1814). View this article in WRRO
- Marine conservation : towards a multi-layered network approach. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 375(1814).
- Occupancy‐derived thermal affinities reflect known physiological thermal limits of marine species. Ecology and Evolution, 10(14), 7050-7061.
- Metabolic niches and biodiversity : a test case in the deep sea benthos. Frontiers in Marine Science, 7.
- An assessment of the state of nature in the United Kingdom: A review of findings, methods and impact. Ecological Indicators, 94(1), 226-236. View this article in WRRO
- Increased Energy Differentially Increases Richness and Abundance of Optimal Body Sizes in Deep-Sea Wood-Falls. Ecology, 99(1), 184-195. View this article in WRRO
- Satellite remote sensing of ecosystem functions: opportunities, challenges and way forward. Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, 4(2), 71-93. View this article in WRRO
- Sized-based indicators show depth-dependent change over time in the deep sea. ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil, 75(1), 113-121. View this article in WRRO
- Abundance-Occupancy Relationships in Deep Sea Wood Fall Communities. Ecography, 40(11), 1339-1347. View this article in WRRO
- Functional, size and taxonomic diversity of fish along a depth gradient in the deep sea. PeerJ, 4. View this article in WRRO
- Conservation: Threatened by Luxury.. Current Biology, 26(12), R498-R500.
- Quantifying heterogeneous responses of fish community size structure using novel combined statistical techniques. Global Change Biology. View this article in WRRO
- A trait-based metric sheds new light on the nature of the body size–depth relationship in the deep sea. Journal of Animal Ecology, 85(2), 427-436.
- New Approaches to Marine Conservation Through the Scaling Up of Ecological Data.. Annual Review of Marine Science, 8, 435-461. View this article in WRRO
- Classifying degrees of species commonness: North Sea fish as a case study. Ecological Modelling, 312, 272-280.
- Global Patterns of Extinction Risk in Marine and Non-marine Systems. Current Biology, 25(4), 506-511. View this article in WRRO
- Extracting order from elegant chaos: Implications of the marine diversity spectrum. Journal of Animal Ecology, 83(4), 741-743.
- Direct and indirect effects of climate and fishing on changes in coastal ecosystem services: a historical perspective from the North Sea. Regional Environmental Change.
- Fewer invited talks by women in evolutionary biology symposia.. J Evol Biol, 26(9), 2063-2069.
- What is Macroecology?. Biology Letters, 8(6), 904-906.
- Marine and terrestrial ecology: unifying concepts, revealing differences.. Trends Ecol Evol, 27(10), 535-541.
- Characterizing abundance-occupancy relationships: There is no artefact. Global Ecology and Biogeography.
- Extensive gaps and biases in our knowledge of a well-known fauna: Implications for integrating biological traits into macroecology. Global Ecology and Biogeography.
- The birds and the seas: body size reconciles differences in the abundance-occupancy relationship across marine and terrestrial vertebrates. OIKOS, 120(4), 537-549.
- Frontiers of marine science.. Biol Lett, 7(3), 324-326.
- Biodiversity's big wet secret: the global distribution of marine biological records reveals chronic under-exploration of the deep pelagic ocean.. PLoS One, 5(8), e10223.
- Who cares? Quantifying the evolution of division of parental effort. METHODS ECOL EVOL, 1(3), 221-230.
- Getting to the bottom of biodiversity. Planet Earth(SPRING), 30-31.
- Life history mediates large-scale population ecology in marine benthic taxa. MAR ECOL-PROG SER, 396, 293-306.
- Continental-scale patterns in benthic invertebrate diversity: insights from the MacroBen database. MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES, 382, 239-252.
- Macroecology of the European soft sediment benthos: insights from the MacroBen database. MAR ECOL-PROG SER, 382, 287-296.
- Developing an integrated conceptual framework to understand biodiversity conflicts. LAND USE POLICY, 26(2), 242-253.
- Are parental care trade-offs in shorebirds driven by parental investment or sexual selection?. J Evol Biol, 22(4), 672-682.
- Biodiversity research sets sail: showcasing the diversity of marine life.. Biol Lett, 5(2), 145-147.
- Conversations in conservation: revealing and dealing with language differences in environmental conflicts. J APPL ECOL, 45(4), 1198-1204.
- Does double-blind review benefit female authors?. Trends Ecol Evol, 23(7), 351-353.
- Only half right: species with female-biased sexual size dimorphism consistently break Rensch's rule.. PLoS One, 2(9), e897.
- Abundance-occupancy dynamics in a human dominated environment: linking interspecific and intraspecific trends in British farmland and woodland birds.. J Anim Ecol, 76(1), 123-134.
- Distributions of Habitat Suitability and the Abundance‐Occupancy Relationship. The American Naturalist, 167(2), 260-275.
- Coincident scales of forest feedback on climate and conservation in a diversity hot spot. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 273(1587), 757-765.
- Do marine and terrestrial ecologists do it differently?. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 304, 283-289.
- Forest cover-rainfall relationships in a biodiversity hotspot: The Atlantic forest of Brazil. ECOL APPL, 15(6), 1968-1983.
- Heritability of geographic range sizes revisited: A reply to Hunt et al.. AM NAT, 166(1), 136-143.
- Life history and ecological correlates of extinction risk in European freshwater fishes. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 62(4), 854-862.
- On the heritability of geographic range sizes.. Am Nat, 161(4), 553-566.
- The free‐living pterygote insects of Gough Island, South Atlantic Ocean. Systematics and Biodiversity, 1(2), 213-273.
- Geographic range size and evolutionary age in birds.. Proc Biol Sci, 267(1455), 1843-1850.
- Refocusing multiple stressor research around the targets and scales of ecological impacts. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 5(11), 1478-1489.
- symposium summary: Recent views from the macroscope. Frontiers of Biogeography, 4(3).
- symposium summary: Recent views from the macroscope. Frontiers of Biogeography, 4(3).
Book chapters
- Rarity and Phylogeny in Birds, Biotic Homogenization (pp. 57-80). Springer US
Book reviews
- The Formidable Challenge of Answering Simple Questions in Community Ecology. Trends in Ecology & Evolution.
Conference proceedings
- REFUGIA OF FUTURES PAST: USING THE DEEP PAST TO SCOPE HUMAN-ENVIRONMENTAL FUTURES AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR ADAPTATION. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs
Software, code or databases
- Data and code for Occupancy-derived thermal affinities reflect known physiological thermal limits of marine species.
- R Code for Webb & Mindel Marine Extinctions paper.
- Linking dimensions of data on global marine animal diversity.
Posters
- Putting biodiversity data to work for marine environmental policy.
Datasets
- Deep Sea Wood Fall AOR - Ecography.
- Variable definitions for Webb & Mindel Marine Extinctions data table.
- Full data table for Webb & Mindel Marine Extinctions ms.
- Full data table for Webb & Mindel Marine Extinctions ms.
- Deep Sea Wood Fall AOR - Ecography.
- Variable definitions for Webb & Mindel Marine Extinctions data table.
Preprints
- Fish functional groups of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, Copernicus GmbH.
- Overconfidence undermines global wildlife abundance trends, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
- Improving the visual communication of environmental model projections. Scientific Reports, 11.
- Research group
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PhD students
- Loreto Pino - Environmental Drivers of Spatio-Temporal Variability in Chilean Marine Benthic Macrofauna, funded by Advanced Human Capital Program of the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research CONICYT - Chile.
- Francesca Quell - ACCE (NERC DTP) funded with Cefas (CASE partner), The macroecology of marine biological invasions in a changing envrionment: a trait-based approach
- Teaching activities
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As Director of Postgraduate Teaching, I coordinate masters degrees within APS, and I am programme director of our MSc Biodiversity and Conservation and MSc Biological Sciences.
I teach on masters modules APS603 Global Conservation Issues and APS6623 Changing Global Ecosystems, and I coordinate our PGT skills module APS6617 Scientific Skills and Project Management.
I also teach an advanced R module on spatial data and mapping. My undergraduate teaching focuses on marine conservation, biodiversity, and global change.
I lecture on APS349 Conservation Issues and Management, APS313 Global Change, APS231 Ecosystems in a Changing Global Environment, APS271 Conservation Principles, and APS124 Ecosystems, Climate and Environmental Change.
I run the Level 3 Marine Ecology field course to Anglesey. In addition I supervise research projects and dissertations / literature reviews at Level 3, Level 4, MSc and MRes level.
- Professional activities and memberships
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- Member, UN Pool of Experts for the Ocean
- Editorial Board Member, Biology Letters
- Associate Editor, Global Ecology and Biogeography
Key collaborations
My work on marine biodiversity and macroecology relies on the existence of large databases collected by many individuals, but key existing collaborations and interactions involve: