Estuarine Sediment Organic Matter Degradation Rates from a 10-Day In Situ Experiment

A 10-day in situ manipulation experiment measured organic matter degradation rates and species abundances across a gradient of infaunal community traits. The dataset includes results from rapid assays with treatments of added microplastics, nitrogen, and a combined microplastics–nitrogen treatment. It accompanies a submitted manuscript by author Saskia Foreman and is shared under a CC-BY-4.0 license.

Use Cases

• Modeling the impact of nitrogen enrichment on sediment organic matter degradation based on experimental treatment data.
• Analyzing the relationship between benthic community composition and ecosystem function based on species abundance data.
• Investigating the combined effects of microplastics and nutrient pollution on estuarine carbon cycling.
• Studying functional diversity gradients from polychaete-dominated to bivalve-dominated infaunal communities.

Strengths

• Data originates from a controlled 10-day in situ manipulation experiment with specific treatments.
• Macrofaunal samples were collected from 36 plots and identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible.
• Experimental design includes a characterized gradient of infaunal community composition.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The dataset is small (21.1 KB), indicating a limited scope of observations.

Provenance

Source

figshare, accompanying a submitted manuscript.

Collection Method

Data collected during a 10-day in situ manipulation experiment using macrofaunal cores sieved through a 500 µm mesh.

Time Range

Covers the duration of the 10-day experiment.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-12 08:54:56; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Estuarine sediments; specific location not stated.