Animal metacommunities of temporary ponds in a flat grassland landscape of Uruguay

The database comprises a survey of an animal metacommunity of temporary
ponds carried out in October 2008, in a grassland landscape of Uruguay.
The animal groups involve macroinvertebrates, fishes, and amphibians.
Individual occurrence, taxonomic affiliation, and traits associated with
diet and body size are provided. The metacommunity is located in a flat
landscape surrounded by hills, where a maximum of 61 ponds, every year,
are filled with water in winter and dry out in summer in the same spatial
locations. Information on species and morphospecies abundances at the
sampling unit level was recorded in 18 ponds, the number of ponds that
were active (i.e., with water) at the sampling date. These ponds are part
of the metacommunity for which plants have been sampled every year since
2005 in all ponds and for which environmental information was also
compiled—data available in this same Dryad entry. Further surveys are
being processed and will be available in the future. Data are
provided for promoting the advancement of metacommunity theory,
corroborating published studies, and generating novel ones. We are
incorporating all the available information about the studied
metacommunity that now comprises 20 years of continuous
monitoring. The database includes animal species and
morphospecies abundances at the sampling unit level for 18 temporary ponds
sampled in October 2008. The species traits related to body sizes
(measured for each individual) and trophic guild (obtained from
literature) are presented together with the individual taxonomy. Note that
species Order or family can also be used as a proxy of many conserved
attributes like life history, resistance strategy, dispersal mode, or
vulnerability to predators.