Data from: Shorebirds-driven trophic cascade helps restore coastal wetland multifunctionality

Ecosystem restoration has traditionally focused on re-establishing vegetation and other foundation species at basal trophic levels, with mixed outcomes. Here, we show that threatened shorebirds could be important to restoring coastal wetland multifunctionality. We carried out surveys and manipulative field experiments in a region along the Yellow Sea affected by the invasive cordgrass Spartina alterniflora. We found that planting native plants alone failed to restore wetland multifunctionality in a field restoration experiment. Shorebird exclusion weakened wetland multifunctionality, whereas mimicking higher predation before shorebird population declines by excluding their key prey – crab grazers – enhanced wetland multifunctionality. The mechanism underlying these effects is a simple trophic cascade, whereby shorebirds control crab grazers that otherwise suppress native vegetation recovery and destabilize sediments (via bioturbation). Our findings suggest that harnessing the top-down effects of shorebirds – through habitat conservation, rewilding, or temporary simulation of consumptive or non-consumptive effects – should be explored as a nature-based solution to restoring the multifunctionality of degraded coastal wetlands.  

This ZIP file contains the following datasets and code for the above paper:
1.  Focal study site_shorebird trends.xlsx This file contains data on shorebird abundance at the focal study site between 1996 and 2021
2.  Regional crab grazing effects.xlsx This file contains data used in the meta-analysis of studies on the effect of crab grazers on native wetland plants
3.  Regional predation intensity.xlsx This file contains data on shorebird predation on crabs at five native marsh sites
4.  Restoration experiment_bird abundance.xlsx This file contains data on bird abundance in three camera traps installed at the restoration site
5.  Restoration experiment_bird species richness.xlsx This file contains data on bird species richness in three camera traps installed at the restoration site
6.  Restoration experiment_crab abundance.xlsx This file contains data on crab abundance in different treatments of the restoration experiment
7. Restoration experiment_ecosystem functions.xlsx This file contains data for the 12 ecosystem functions measured in different treatments of the restoration experiment
8. Restoration experiment_for meta-regression of bird effect sizes on crab abundance This file contains the calculated effect sizes of birds on crab abundance for meta-regression against bird abundance
9. Restoration experiment_for regression of ecosystem functions This file contains data for regression of ecosystem functions and multifunctionality against crab abundance and primary production  
10.  Restoration experiment_plant abundance.xlsx This file contains data on plant abundance in different treatments of the restoration experiment
11.  Restoration experiment_predation intensity.xlsx This file contains data on shorebird predation on tethered crabs in different treatments of the restoration experiment
12. Restoration experiment_the rate of plant abundance change.xlsx This file contains data on the rate of plant abundance change in different treatments of the restoration experiment  
13. Shorebird non-consumptive effects experiment.xlsx This file contains data on crab abundance in different treatments of the shorebird non-consumptive effects simulation experiment
14. Code_Li_Shorebirds_Ms.R This file contains the R code used for data analysis.