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A global database of nitrogen and phosphorus excretion rates of aquatic animals
Citation:
Vanni, M., P. McIntyre, M. Hopton, D. Allen, D. L. Arnott, J. Benstead, D. Berg, A. Braband, S. Brosse, P. A. Bukaveckas, A. Caliman, AND e. al. A global database of nitrogen and phosphorus excretion rates of aquatic animals. ECOLOGY. Ecological Society of America, Ithaca, NY, 98(5):1475, (2017). https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.1792
Impact/Purpose:
The purpose of this paper is to present a global compilation of aquatic animal nitrogen and phosphorous excretion rates. This work is important because the data set can be used for predicting how an organism’s elemental composition and metabolism shapes the ecology of any particular natural system. Researchers, communities, and planners looking to predict nutrient cycling in a system could use this research.
Description:
Animals can be important in modulating ecosystem-level nutrient cycling, although their importance varies greatly among species and ecosystems. Nutrient cycling rates of individual animals represent valuable data for testing the predictions of important frameworks such as the Metabolic Theory of Ecology (MTE) and ecological stoichiometry (ES). They also represent an important set of functional traits that may reflect both environmental and phylogenetic influences. Over the past two decades, studies of animal-mediated nutrient cycling have increased dramatically, especially in aquatic ecosystems. Here we present a global compilation of aquatic animal nutrient excretion rates. The dataset includes 10,534 observations from freshwater and marine animals of N and/or P excretion rates. These observations represent 491 species, including most aquatic phyla. Coverage varies greatly among phyla and other taxonomic levels. The dataset includes information on animal body size, ambient temperature, taxonomic affiliations, and animal body N:P. This data set was used to test predictions of MTE and ES, as described in Vanni and McIntyre (2016; Ecology DOI: 10.1002/ecy.1582).
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: A global database of nitrogen and phosphorus excretion rates of aquatic animals
Free access through PubMed Central
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy.1792/full