Published

Enhancing ecological complexity in soft-bottom coastal ecosystems: the impact of introducing hard substrates - Data Version 22

Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research https://doi.org/10.25850/nioz/7b.b.hg

Coastal ecosystems globally face pressures, with natural coastal habitats being replaced by engineered structures. While hard structures for navigation-purposes and coastal defence can negatively impact native communities, they can also be applied in ecological restoration as artificial reefs to stimulate epibenthic species. This way substrates facilitate establishment of biogenic (shellfish) reefs and provide habitat heterogeneity in soft-sediment ecosystems. In a 1.5-year experiment, we introduced six different types of natural or biodegradable hard substrates in a subtidal soft-sediment system. We compared the substrates with surrounding soft sediment and evaluated differences between substrate types using biodiversity indices, community composition analyses and food web indicators. This offers a comprehensive understanding of how the introduced hard substrates affect ecosystem complexity. This dataset and the correspponding R-scripts were used for the statistics as presented in the paper. It contains a metadata file, and datafiles containing the following: sediment data, benthic species observed in the experiment, mobile species observed in the experiment. R scripts can be used to calculate biodiversity, community composition and food web metrics on the different types of substrates.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Subject Earth and Environmental Sciences
DAS Code 7b.b.hg
Source https://dataportal.nioz.nl/doi/10.25850/nioz/7b.b.hg
Version 22
Creator(s)
Witte, Sterre (Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research)
ORCID
Contact the corresponding author

Dickson, Jon (Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research)

Franken, Oscar (University of Groningen)

Holthuijsen, Sander (Rijkswaterstaat)

Govers, Laura L. (University of Groningen)

Olff, Han (University of Groningen)

van der Heide, Tjisse (Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research)
Depositor Sterre Witte
Publication Date 2024-02-21
Deposit Date 2023-11-09
Dataset Persistent Identifier DOI:10.25850/nioz/7b.b.hg
Alternate identifier
Related identifier
Contributor NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research
Distributor Research Data Management(NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research)
Distribution Date 2023-11-09
Production Date 2024-02-21
Dates
Funding References
Waddenfonds (WF2018- 448 187059)
Waddentools: habitatheterogeniteit” (also 446 known as “Waddenmozaïek”)
Geographic Coverage