Data for: Evaluating bottom-up forcing of a rocky intertidal resource harvest on a high trophic-level consumer group
Data files
Jan 18, 2024 version files 53.42 KB
Abstract
The importance of ecosystem-based management (EBM) frameworks for resource harvest has increased over the past several decades as ecosystems face numerous anthropogenic stressors. In these frameworks, resource managers must consider the suite of interactions that comprise food webs and how resource harvest drives responses in non-target organisms. In rocky intertidal zones along North Atlantic coastlines, rockweed (Ascophyllum nodosum)—a canopy-forming brown seaweed—has been commercially harvested for centuries, yet most research on the effects of harvest have focused on the responses of the target resource and the macroinvertebrate assemblage. In this study, we used a Before-After Control-Impact experiment to assess the bottom-up effects of commercial rockweed harvest on a high trophic-level consumer group (birds) in Maine (USA). Overall, there was no evidence for strong bottom-up forcing of rockweed harvest on birds’ site visitation. There was a small (fewer than two birds) positive effect size of harvest during the one-year post-harvest recovery interval. Several of the trends observed for the full bird assemblage appear to be driven more strongly by the low tide than the high tide bird assemblage. Independent of treatment, site visitation by birds was low in our study (60% of surveys recorded no birds) and highlights questions about the use of rocky intertidal habitats relative to other habitat types in coastal birds’ home ranges. To our knowledge, there are no comparable assemblage-level bird studies in this system that can provide context to our results. Further research on coastal birds’ habitat use within home ranges and food-web connections with rockweed-associated macroinvertebrates is needed to more confidently incorporate this high trophic-level consumer group into an EBM framework for a rocky intertidal resource harvest.
README: Dataset for article: Evaluating bottom-up forcing of a rocky intertidal resource harvest on a high trophic-level consumer group
Dataset information
Johnston et al. 2024. Published in Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, Volume 298
Access this dataset on Dryad: https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.
jwstqjqh8
Recommended citation for dataset: Johnston, E. M., Klemmer, A. J., Braun, L. A., Mittelstaedt, H. N., Muhlin, J. F., Webber, H. M., & Olsen, B. J. (2024). Data from: Evaluating bottom-up forcing of a rocky intertidal resource harvest on a high trophic-level consumer group. Dryad Digital Repository. https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.
jwstqjqh8
Corresponding author contact information:
Name: Elliot M. Johnston
Current Institution: Tetra Tech
Location: Bangor, Maine, USA
Current email: elliot.johnston@tetratech.com
Funding sources: Maine Sea Grant, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Dataset context
This dataset contains three files that contain field-collected data and data analyses for a University of Maine research study assessing the impacts of rockweed (Ascophyllum nodosum) harvest on an intertidal bird assemblage.
Dates of data collection: 2018-2020
Location of data collection: Maine, USA
Description of the data and file structure
bird_surveys.csv - bird point-count survey data for Before-After Control-Impact study. The file also contains habitat data fields used in our data analyses, such as mean rockweed biomass and height values at each study site.
bird_surveys_metadata.csv - metadata for bird_surveys.csv. Explains each data field column.
bird_analyses_code.R - R script that executes main data analyses. Uses bird_surveys.csv as input file. Reproduces Table 1, Figure 5, and Figure 6.
The bird data are not publicly accessible in any other location, and are not derived from any other published datasets.
The rockweed habitat data included in bird_surveys.csv is derived from a prior study: Johnston et al. 2023. Bed-scale impact and recovery of a commercially important intertidal seaweed. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. DOI: 10.1016/j.jembe.2023.151869.
Data for Johnston et al. 2023 can be found at: https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.gmsbcc2s8
Sharing/Access information
Licenses/restrictions placed on the data: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain
Code/Software
All code was generated in the program R, version 4.2.0.
Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint were also used to create figures that appear in the published article.