10.5061/DRYAD.HG505
Griffen, Blaine D.
University of South Carolina
Norelli, Alexandra P.
University of South Carolina
Data from: Spatially variable habitat quality contributes to
within-population variation in reproductive success
Dryad
dataset
2016
oyser reef
habitat variation
Panopeus herbstii
2016-02-13T00:00:00Z
2016-02-13T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1427
24293 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Variation in habitat quality is common across terrestrial, freshwater, and
marine habitats. We investigated how habitat quality influenced the
reproductive potential of mud crabs across 30 oyster reefs that were
degraded to different extents. We further coupled this field survey with a
laboratory experiment designed to mechanistically determine the
relationship between resource consumption and reproductive performance. We
show a >10-fold difference in average reproductive potential for
crabs across reefs of different quality. Calculated consumption rates for
crabs in each reef, based on a type II functional response, suggest that
differences in reproductive performance may be attributed to resource
limitation in poor quality reefs. This conclusion is supported by results
of our laboratory experiment where crabs fed a higher quality diet of
abundant animal tissue had greater reproductive performance. Our results
demonstrate that spatial variation in habitat quality can be a
considerable contributor to within-population individual variation in
reproductive success (i.e., demographic heterogeneity). This finding has
important implications for assessing population extinction risk.
Panopeus experimental resultsResults of long term (2 month) feeding
experiment where individual diet was varied (amount of food and proportion
that was mussel vs. algae) and then reproductive effort was
measured.ExperimentDataForDryad.csvSampling data containing just large
crabs used in analysesField sampling data. Each row represents a separate
oyster reef.SamplingDataForDryad.csvIndividCrabsSamplingForDryadData from
field sampling. Same data as in the field sampling file, however, each row
here represents an individual crab rather than the average from each of
the sampled reefs.