Diversity and Dominance in Rocky Intertidal Communities from a 31-Year Experiment

A 31-year experimental manipulation on Tatoosh Island, WA, tested how community structure influences temporal stability. Mussel removal treatments created low dominance plots with greater species richness, while unmanipulated control plots resulted in high dominance plots dominated by Mytilus californianus. The dataset likely contains results quantifying biodiversity, evenness, asynchrony, and community abundance responses to environmental variation.

Use Cases

• Modeling temporal stability of community abundance based on species richness and evenness metrics
• Analyzing portfolio effects as a stabilizing mechanism in low dominance communities
• Investigating resilience pathways in high dominance communities under environmental stress
• Predicting ecosystem stability under future ocean conditions based on local community composition

Strengths

• 31-year long-term experimental manipulation provides a robust temporal scale for analysis
• Direct comparison of low dominance (mussel removal) and high dominance (control) community structures
• Focus on a foundational species (Mytilus californianus) in a well-studied rocky intertidal ecosystem

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Geographic scope is limited to Tatoosh Island, WA

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Casey Richards

Collection Method

Long-term experimental manipulation involving mussel removal treatments and control plots

Time Range

Experiment spanned 31 years

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-24 18:06:29; freshness should be verified

Geography

Tatoosh Island, Washington, USA