Laboratory Microcosm Data on Protist Community Assembly

Data from a controlled experiment on bacterivorous ciliated protist communities in laboratory microcosms. The study, authored by Miriam N. Ojima and published in 2020, investigates the interactive effects of assembly history, disturbance frequency, and dispersal on alpha and beta diversity. It provides empirical measurements of priority effects and community divergence under different ecological contexts.

Use Cases

• Analyze the interactive effects of disturbance frequency and dispersal presence on alpha diversity metrics.
• Model the strength of priority effects on dominant species identity across different assembly histories.
• Investigate how dispersal reduces beta diversity in the absence of disturbance using community composition data.
• Examine the context-dependence of assembly history's role in driving community divergence.

Strengths

• Data originates from a controlled laboratory experiment, allowing for causal inference on assembly mechanisms.
• Explicitly tests the interaction between three key ecological factors: assembly history, disturbance, and dispersal.
• Published under a permissive CC0 1.0 license, enabling unrestricted reuse and analysis.

Limitations

• The dataset is derived from a specific laboratory microcosm system, limiting direct extrapolation to natural field conditions.
• Sample size and specific row/column counts are unknown, which may constrain statistical power for certain analyses.
• Data is from a single study published in 2020 and may not reflect more recent ecological findings.

Provenance

Source

Dryad digital repository.

Collection Method

Data collected from a controlled laboratory experiment manipulating community assembly in microcosms.

Freshness

Last updated on 2020-06-24.

Geography

Laboratory setting; no specific geographic coverage.