Luquillo Dataset 107: El Verde Grid Invertebrate Data
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Overview:
El Verde Grid Invertebrate Data is a long-term observational study of the snail community at the Luquillo LTER on Puerto Rico.
Ecological Level: Community
Biome: Tropical
- Habitat: Forest. 4 different "cover classes" on the plot, categorized by historical human use intensity (more details in Thompson et al. 2002).
Location: Puerto Rico (18 deg 10' N, 65 deg 30' W)
Spatial Scale of data: The Luquillo Forest Dynamics Plot is a 16 ha grid and snail data is collected at 40- 3 m radius sampling sites on this grid.
Timespan: 1991-2007, but pre-1995 there is a different sampling intensity than post-1995 and affect abundance estimates (see Data Collection Summary and Issues below)
Frequency: 2 times per year (wet season and dry season)
Observational/Experimental: Observational
Dataset Location:
Data collection summary:2 times per year (1 wet season and 1 dry season), the Luquillo Forest Dynamics Plot is surveyed for snails. Surveys are conducted at 40 permanently located points on the plot. A minimum of 2 observers search each sample point for 3 minutes for all visible gastropods (i.e., no litter disturbance was conducted). Points are searched for 1-4 nights per season (1 night in Dry Season 1991, 2 nights Wet Season 1991-Wet Season 1993, 3 Dry Season 1994-Dry Season 1995, 4 Wet Season 1995-present except for dry season 2003 when surveys were only done on 2 nights).
Data Collected: Species, abundance
Useful Papers:
[Sampling details] Bloch, C.P., C.L. Higgins, M.L. Willig. 2007. Effects of large-scale disturbance on metacommunity structure of terrestrial gastropods: temporal trends in nestedness. Oikos 116:395-406.
[Cover Classes] Thompson, J.L., et al. 2002. Land use history, environment, and tree composition in a tropical forest. Ecological Applications 12:1344-1363.
Issues:
- Abundance estimates not comparable through time: Sampling effort changes through time (see Data Collection Summary for details) This means that abundance estimates are not comparable through time, except for wet season only 1995-present.