SBC LTER : REEF: Ammonium excretion rates of macroinvertebrates

Consumers may be important mediators of nutrient cycling in giant kelp forests. To aid in this assessment, we measured the ammonium excretion rates of 17 species of macroinvertebrates which comprise 85-97% of the biomass among reefs surveyed by the LTER in the Santa Barbara Channel. We paired these species-specific data with time series of their standing biomass to assess their contributions to kelp forest nitrogen recycling and to examine patterns in their nutrient dynamics over annual and decadal scales. This is the data package supporting the article “Peters, JR, Reed, DC, Burkepile, DE. Climate and fishing drive regime shifts in consumer‐mediated nutrient cycling in kelp forests. Glob Change Biol. 2019; 25: 3179– 3192. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14706”.