California Estuary Metaweb

Birds

Fishes

Invertebrates

Parasite / Disease

Ecosystem

Local

Regional

Observational

Publicly available

Taxonomic Group	Birds, Fishes, Invertebrates, Parasite / Disease
Level of Organization	Ecosystem
Scale	Local, Regional
Data Type	Observational
Accessibility	Publicly available

This dataset depicts food webs from three North American Pacific Coast Estuaries and includes details regarding parastic characters, body-size, biomass, and ontogeny.

Dataset Location: Ecological Archives**
**

Site Location: Carpinteria Salt Marsh, CA; Estero de Punta Banda, Baja California; Bahia Falsa in Bahia San Quintin, Baja California (Lat/Lon)

Sampling Frequency: Single Period

Data Collection Summary: Following an ecosystem level quantification of species (and/or stage) and biomass (and/or body size) nodes and links were constructed to describe the food web dynamics and parasitism in an estuary community (ala Kuris, A. M., et al. 2008. Ecosystem energetic implications of parasite and free-living biomass in three estuaries. Nature 454:515–518.)

Known Issues: Some uncertainty in link assignment and in the resolution of some nodes. Ectoparisites, terrestrial arthopods, and meiofauna are under-represented. Some nodes represent aggregated species (i.e. benthic diatoms). Varying acuracy in body size and biomass.

Citation: Ryan F. Hechinger, Kevin D. Lafferty, John P. McLaughlin, Brian L. Fredensborg, Todd C. Huspeni, Julio Lorda, Parwant K. Sandhu, Jenny C. Shaw, Mark E. Torchin, Kathleen L. Whitney, and Armand M. Kuris. 2011. Food webs including parasites, biomass, body sizes, and life stages for three California/Baja California estuaries. Ecology 92:791.

Available on Ecodata Retreiver: No