Substantial pulses of aquatic insects emerge from tidal freshwaters along the James River Estuary, Virginia, USA

Tidal freshwaters in upper estuarine reaches provide important ecosystem services but are threatened by relative sea-level rise and pollution from increased development. Tidal freshwaters are highly productive and support estuarine and riparian food webs alike. Aquatic insects are common prey subsidies crossing into riparian habitats; however, the magnitude, timing, and composition of insect emergence in tidal systems has received little attention. Our objective was to better understand the magnitude and variability of aquatic insect emergence in tidal freshwaters. To do so, we quantified insect emergence from tidal creeks and estuarine shorelines of the James Estuary, Virginia, USA, and characterized spatial and temporal patterns in the amount of emergent biomass. We continuously monitored insect emergence from 7 April to 8 November 2019 with floating emergence traps to estimate daily emergence, then used generalized additive mixed models to analyze spatial and temporal variation in da..., At each site, we placed 4 emergence traps along the estuarine shoreline near the creek–estuary confluence (hereafter, shoreline) and 9 traps longitudinally along the creek, reaching 1050 to 1540 m from the confluence. We positioned all traps within 3 m of the shore (creek or estuarine) at high tide. Variation in water depth resulted in some traps resting on exposed substrate at low tide (intertidal), whereas others always remained over water (subtidal). Additionally, variation in streambank slope resulted in different tidal zone sampling patterns between sites. At Deep Bottom, we sampled Bailey Creek primarily in the subtidal zone and the shoreline primarily in the intertidal zone. At the Rice Center, we sampled Kimages Creek primarily in the intertidal zone and the shoreline primarily in the subtidal zone.
We continuously monitored aquatic insect emergence from 7 April to 8 November 2019, capturing all emergence events within the sampling period. We constructed floating emergence traps..., , # Data from: Substantial pulses of aquatic insects emerge from tidal freshwaters along the James River Estuary, Virginia, USA

The dataset *emergenceDataProcessed.csv* includes standardized biomass and density estimates (m-2 d-1) for each emergent insect taxon collected during the sampling period, as well as covariates used in downstream modeling of insect emergence rates, organized by sample collection (CollectionID).

The dataset *emergenceData_daily.csv* expands standardized biomass and density estimates (m-2 d-1) to include each emergent insect taxon on each day at each trap during the sampling period, as well as covariates used in downstream modeling of insect emergence rates. Daily estimates can be summed to obtain emergence estimates over longer time periods (e.g., annual estimates, peak emergence estimates). This dataset is created from emergenceDataProcessed.csv and is the input dataset for insect emergence models.

## Description of the data and file structure

###### *emerg...