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 ordinatio...