Abundance data for invertebrate assemblages from intertidal mussel beds along the Atlantic Canadian coast

Abstract

This data set describes the abundance of invertebrate taxa found in intertidal mussel beds along the Atlantic Canadian coast. The data resulted from a regional-scale study that investigated the effects of wave exposure on the richness and composition of invertebrate assemblages from intertidal mussel beds. Abundance data are provided for taxa representing the Annelida, Arthropoda, Bryozoa, Chordata, Cnidaria, Echinodermata, Mollusca, Nematoda, Nemertea, and Platyhelminthes. The data characterize mussel beds from wave-sheltered and wave-exposed locations spanning 315 km of coast. Univariate and multivariate analyses revealed that the compositional structure of these invertebrate assemblages differed markedly depending on wave exposure. Overall, this data set exhibits important properties that could make it useful to test broader ecological theory. Such properties include its taxonomic diversity, the possession of data for basal, intermediate, and top trophic levels, and the coverage of two extremes of environmental stress. Thus, areas of ecology that could experience advances using this data set are those concerning environmental stress models of community organization, abundance–occupancy relationships, species co-occurrence, species abundance distributions, dominance and rarity, spatial scales of population and community variation, and distribution of functional and phylogenetic diversity.