Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER Data Set Details

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GCE-LTER Data Set Summary

Accession:

MLT-GCET-1106b

Research Theme:

Multi-Disciplinary Study (Graduate Thesis Study)

Contributors:

Brittany DeLoach McCall, Steve Pennings, Huy Vu, Kazik Wieski, Hongyu Guo, Michael Richardson, Brittany DeLong, Claudia Grimm, Annika Stark

Title:

Experimental plots studies comparing the impact of fertilization and wrack addition on invertebrate abundance and plant cover in Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico salt marshes from April 2009 to September 2010

Abstract:

Understanding the relative strengths of top-down and bottom-up forces is an important key to predicting the structure of biological communities. The strength of these effects can be regulated in part by predator abundance and nutrient availability. In 2009, we hypothesized that the importance of these factors varies geographically between the southeastern Atlantic Coast and the Gulf Coast due to differences in tidal regime, and began to study this variation using a biogeographic, manipulative field experiment. Although our original purpose was to understand the structure of salt marsh arthropod food webs, BP's Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf Coast presented an opportunity to understand how stress from an oil spill might affect the variables that we were measuring. The fact that we had plots and transect sampling in place at multiple sites along the Gulf and East Coasts put us in a position to evaluate any impacts that might occur if oil hit some of the sites. The study was conducted at 11 sites across the Gulf Coast, from Texas to Florida, and 11 sites along the Atlantic Coast, from Florida to Maine. At each site, experimental plots were sampled and a 100m transect was sampled near the plots within 5m of the high marsh boundary. Sampling was conducted in May 2009, August 2009, and August 2010. In 2010, four extra sites were added to the existing experimental sites because of known oil contamination, and another site was added as an extra control. Only the transect sampling was conducted at these sites. This dataset contains all the data from experimental plots; experimental treatments of fertilizer addition, wrack addition, fertilizer & wrack addition, and no addition (control) were randomly applied to the plots. The plot treatments were maintained in August 2009 and May 2010.

DOI:

10.6073/pasta/6e33b914618a9d5d112fb70a8ff230b1

Key Words:

abundance, Acridid, arthropods, Cecidomyiidae, Chaetopsis, Chloropidae, Delphacodes, Dolichopodidae, ecosystems, Foraminifera, Geukensia, insects, invertebrates, irradiance, Ischnodemus, latitude, Littoraria, longitude, marine, Megamealus, Melampus, nematodes, Oligochaetes, plants, Polychaetes, Prokelisia, Tettigoniid, Trigonotylus, Tytthus

LTER Core Area:

Disturbance Patterns

Research Themes:

Multi-Disciplinary Study, Aquatic Invertebrate Ecology, Plant Ecology, Population Ecology, Terrestrial Insect Ecology

Study Period:

25-Apr-2009 to 15-Sep-2010

Study Sites:

SE_Coast -- Southeastern USA Coast, USA

» Download Geographic Coverage: Google Earth

Species References:

Delphacodes penedetecta, Geukensia demissa, Littoraria irrorata, Melampus bidentatus, Prokelisia marginata, Spartina alterniflora, Trigonotylus uhleri, Tytthus vagus

Data References:

MLT-GCET-1106a (Corresponding transect survey data set)

Publications:

McCall, B.D. 2011. Geographic Variation in the Structure of Salt Marsh Arthropod Communities. M.S. Thesis. University of Houston, Houston, Texas. 51 pages.

Downloads:

Data Table: MLT-GCET-1106b (Main data table for data set MLT-GCET-1106b, 176 records)

Access: Public (released 01-Jan-2012)

Metadata: Text (ESA FLED), XML (Ecological Metadata Language)

Data Formats: Spreadsheet (CSV) [28.02kb], Text File [31.72kb], MATLAB (GCE Toolbox) [280.27kb], MATLAB (Variables) [283.16kb], Text Report [103.80kb]

Column List:(hide)

Column	Name	Units	Type	Description
1	Location	none	string	Name of the sampling location
2	Latitude	degrees	floating-point	Geographic latitude of the sampling location
3	Longitude	degrees	floating-point	Geographic longitude of the sampling location
4	Day	D	integer	Calendar day site was sampled
5	Month	M	integer	Calendar month site was sampled
6	Year	YYYY	integer	Calendar year site was sampled
7	Treatment	none	integer	Treatment applied to the plot
8	Spartina_Cover	percent	floating-point	percent cover of Spartina in 0.5 x 0.5 m quadrat
9	Dead_Plant_Cover	percent	floating-point	percent cover of dead plant material in 0.5 x 0.5 m quadrat
10	Spartina_Height	cm	floating-point	Height of tallest Spartina alterniflora plant
11	PAR_Above_Canopy	µE/m^2/s	floating-point	PAR reading above plant canopy
12	PAR_Below_Canopy	µE/m^2/s	floating-point	PAR reading at soil level
13	Light_Intercepted	ratio	floating-point	Fraction of light intercepted by the canopy
14	Trigonotylus_uhleri_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Trigonotylus uhleri in pooled DVac sample
15	Leafhopper_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of leafhoppers in pooled DVac sample
16	Prokelisia_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Prokelisia in pooled DVac sample
17	Delphacodes_penedetecta_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Delphacodes penedetecta in pooled DVac sample
18	Megamealus_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Megamealus in pooled DVac sample
19	Immature_Delphacids_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of immature Delphacids in pooled DVac sample
20	Other_Planthopper_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of other Planthoppers in pooled DVac sample
21	Ischnodemus_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Ischnodemus in pooled DVac sample
22	Tettigonid_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Tettigonid in pooled DVac sample
23	Acridid_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Acridid in pooled DVac sample
24	Thrips_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Thrips in pooled DVac sample
25	Weevil_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of weevils in pooled DVac sample
26	Chaetopsis_Fly_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Chaetopsis fly in pooled DVac sample
27	Chloropidae_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Chloropidae in pooled DVac sample
28	Cecidomyiidae_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Cecidomyiidae in pooled DVac sample
29	Dolichopodidae_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Dolichopodidae in pooled DVac sample
30	Other_Herbivore_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of other herbivores in pooled DVac sample
31	Tythus_vagus_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Tythus vagus in pooled DVac sample
32	Naemia_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Naemia in pooled DVac sample
33	Hogna_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Hogna in pooled DVac sample
34	Pardosa_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Pardosa in pooled DVac sample
35	Marpissa_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Marpissa in pooled DVac sample
36	Other_Salticid_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of other Salticid in pooled DVac sample
37	Clubionid_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Clubionid in pooled DVac sample
38	Tetragnatha_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Tetragnatha in pooled DVac sample
39	Grammonota_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Grammonota in pooled DVac sample
40	Other_Spider_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of other spiders in pooled DVac sample
41	Other_Predator_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of other predators in pooled DVac sample
42	Wasp_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of wasps in pooled DVac sample
43	Collembola_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Collembola in pooled DVac sample
44	Brachycera_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Brachycera in pooled DVac sample
45	Nematocera_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Nematocera in pooled DVac sample
46	Ant_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of ants in pooled DVac sample
47	Dragonfly_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of dragonflies in pooled DVac sample
48	Cricket_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of crickets in pooled DVac sample
49	Amphipod_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Amphipods in pooled DVac sample
50	Coleoptera_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of Coleoptera in pooled DVac sample
51	Crab_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of crabs in pooled DVac sample
52	Mite_Count_DVac	count	integer	Number of mites in pooled DVac sample
53	Total_Arthropod_Count_DVac	count	integer	Total arthropods in pooled DVac sample

Statistics:

Generate script code to retrieve data tables for analysis in: MATLAB, R, SAS, SPSS

Citation:

McCall, Brittany DeLoach. 2011. Experimental plots studies comparing the impact of fertilization and wrack addition on invertebrate abundance and plant cover in Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico salt marshes from April 2009 to September 2010. Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER Project, University of Georgia, Long Term Ecological Research Network. http://dx.doi.org/10.6073/pasta/6e33b914618a9d5d112fb70a8ff230b1

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