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Salt marsh plant community development in a metacommunity experiment in the Wadden Sea

Lõhmus, Kertu1; Hansel, Angelika1; Balke, Thorsten1; Kleyer, Michael1

Published May 28, 2025 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.gxd2547z3

Data files

May 28, 2025 version files 11.80 MB

Abstract

Shallow tidal coasts are characterized by shifting tidal flats and emerging or eroding islands above the high tide line. Salt marsh vegetation colonizing new habitats distant from existing marshes are an ideal model to investigate metacommunity theory. We installed a set of 12 experimental salt marsh islands made from metal cages on a tidal flat in the German Wadden Sea to study the assembly of salt marsh communities in a metacommunity context. Experimental plots at the same elevation were established within the adjacent salt marsh on the island of Spiekeroog. For both experimental islands and salt marsh enclosed plots, the same three elevational levels were realized while creating bare patches open for colonization and vegetated patches with a defined transplanted community. We followed the plant community assembly from the initial setup in September 2014 until August 2023, when the experimental setup was dismantled. The dataset includes vegetation data surveyed for two squares of 1 x 1 m within the 2 x 2 m experimental plots that were randomly assigned at the start of the experiment for permanent non-destructive surveys. Plant species presence/absence was recorded for each 10 x 10 cm area within 0.9 x 0.9 m quadrants placed at the center of the plot. Our data highlights spatially and temporally explicit metacommunity dynamics that should be considered in salt marsh plant community assembly and disassembly. Details of the experimental setup are published in Balke et al. 2017.