Quality versus quantity: Response of riparian bird communities to aquatic insect emergence in agro-ecosystems

In many agricultural landscapes where field drainage is required to enhance crop production, agricultural drainage ditches, and their associated banks and hedgerows can support riparian biodiversity, including bird communities. Against a global background of farmland bird and terrestrial insect decline due to agricultural intensification and extensification, emerging aquatic insects in these aquatic corridors can provide a pulse of energy-rich, nutritionally-critical food for birds and other wildlife. In this paper, we quantify the value of drainage ditch habitats in terms of aquatic insect production as a potential food source for riparian foraging birds in a river basin in eastern Canada. We found that although extremely productive in terms of total biomass, agricultural drainage ditches may not be able to fully support resource use for foraging predators that rely on emerging aquatic insects. DNA metabarcoding revealed a gradient of “quality” (large-bodied, nutrient rich insects) to ..., , , # Data from: Quality versus quantity: Response of riparian bird communities to aquatic insect emergence in agro-ecosystems

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.sbcc2frfk](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.sbcc2frfk)

*Study Area:* South Nation River Watershed, Ontario, Canada

*Objective:* Examine the secondary productivity of emerging aquatic insects as an ecosystem service and determine the linkage between aquatic insect emergence and riparian avian communities in an agro-ecosystem in eastern Ontario, Canada.

## Description of the data and file structure

**Data files included:**

* \"sites_full.csv\"-- GPS coordinates in NAD 83 for full list of study sites (n=29) and categorical classifications (variable descriptions in table below).
* \"environment.csv\" -- Descriptive environmental data for study sites, including geospatial variables and water chemistry (variable descriptions in table below).

- \"emergence.csv\" -- Aquatic insect emergence biomass over the sampling season, averaged for each sit...