Macrofaunal diversity patterns in coastal marine sediments: Re-examining common metrics and methods

Complex biodiversity patterns arise in marine systems due to overlapping ecological processes, including organism interactions, resource distribution, and environmental conditions. Despite the importance of documenting these patterns, describing diversity in natural ecosystems remains challenging. Here, we investigate three nearshore sub-Arctic sites to describe benthic macroinfaunal taxa and biological traits, with the ultimate aim of determining whether common diversity metrics and typical sampling efforts adequately capture community composition in these systems. First, we assess how diversity relates to sediment depth, and examine relationships among commonly used taxonomic and functional diversity indices. Second, using a power analysis, we explore how sampling effort influences the interpretation of diversity patterns in coastal systems. We report significant variation in community composition among sites, even across small spatial scales of kilometers, and find that taxonomically..., , , # Data from: Macrofaunal diversity patterns in coastal marine sediments: Re-examining common metrics and methods

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.76hdr7t3k](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.76hdr7t3k)

Data were collected from three intertidal soft-sediment sites around the island of Newfoundland, Canada using manual sediment push cores. Cores were sectioned into depth layers (0-2 cm, 2-5 cm, and 5-10 cm) and macrofauna were sieved through a 500 micron mesh, enumerated, and identified to the lowest possible taxonomic level. Additional sediment samples were analyzed for grain size, total organic carbon and total nitrogen, and photopigment (chlorophyll-a and phaeopigment) concentrations, to provide context on the environmental conditions at each site.

This dataset includes:

1. Raw abundance data, functional trait information, and raw sediment characteristic data for each site;
2. Taxonomic and functional diversity indices calculated using common methods in the field;
3. Code used to prod...