Datasets for: Primary production and habitat stability organize marine communities

Aim: The emergence of pattern in the natural world can carry
important messages about underlying processes. For example, collections of
broadly similar terrestrial ecosystems have historically been categorized
as biomes – groupings of systems which sort along energetic and structural
process axes. In marine systems however, a similar classification of
biomes has not emerged. The aim here is to develop an effective
classification scheme for marine biomes and communities.
Approach: Candidate predictor variables that could explain
pattern and process in differentiating marine communities, such as light,
nutrients, depth, etc., were collected from the existing literature with a
systematic review. The candidate predictors were then evaluated in an
inductive process, allowing community level observations to demonstrate
patterns across marine biomes. Marine biomes and communities were
identified a priori, and emergent patterns were evaluated quantitatively,
via Principal Component ordination based on the vectors of explanatory
predictors, and qualitatively via mapping. Conclusions: Gross
primary production and substrate mobility not only effectively sort marine
biomes, but also work on finer scales discriminating communities within
biomes. As a result, these predictors were more effective in classifying
marine communities than other scales, such as available light and
nutrients. The richness of this classification is also demonstrated in
revealing other patterns, such as the distribution of human impacts. The
effectiveness of this mapping provides support for, but is not a test of,
the hypothesis that primary production and substrate mobility are
important underlying processes that interact to structure marine
ecosystems.