Long-term Rocky Tidal Community Data from Discovery Bay, Jamaica

The rocky supratidal zone is home to a wide diversity of life. Understanding how individual species persist, the interactions between species in a community, and how the abiotic environment can shape these interactions requires detailed study. Over nearly three decades, Professor Jurek Kolasa and his research team have monitored meta-community dynamics in some 50 rock (supratidal) pools along the shores of Jamaica, collecting abundance information for 78 rock pool species, as well a abiotic measurements (temperature, salinity, pH, chlorophyll, dissolved oxygen, depth, volume). These data represent one of the most intensive meta-community monitoring projects ever conducted, making them of consider valuable to our understanding of tropical coastal community dynamics.