Mytilaster functional dominance

Description

This dataset supports the manuscript 'Ecosystem engineers and functional dominance: when species loss matters for ecosystem function' (Sarà, Dong and Mangano). It contains data from 54 intertidal quadrats (10 × 10 cm) sampled within Mytilaster minimus beds at two rocky shore sites along the north-western coast of Sicily (Mediterranean Sea). The workbook includes: (1) a raw species abundance matrix of 93 associated invertebrate taxa across a natural engineer density gradient (202-2317 ind. m⁻²); (2) environmental variables per quadrat including trapped organic matter dry weight, shell fragment weight and biochemical composition of trapped sediment (chlorophyll a, lipids, proteins, carbohydrates and biopolymeric carbon); (3) feeding guild assignments for all taxa based on published literature; (4) the complete analytical pipeline reproducing all statistics reported in the manuscript, including extended Price equation partitions (Fox and Kerr 2012), functional dominance indices (Chao and Ricotta 2019), beta diversity decomposition (Baselga 2010), species-density relationships, Spearman correlations with permutation tests and partial correlations with bootstrap confidence intervals. All derived sheets are generated from the raw data using a deterministic Python script (seed = 42) included in the archive.

Institutions

• University of Palermo

  Sicily, Palermo

Categories

Licence