Data from: Relating trophic resources to community structure: a predictive index of food availability

The abundance and the distribution of trophic resources available for consumers influence the productivity and the diversity of natural communities. Nevertheless, assessment of the actual abundance of food items available for individual trophic groups has been constrained by differences in methods and metrics used by various authors. Here we develop an index of food abundance, the framework of which can be adapted for different ecosystems. The relative available food index (RAFI) is computed by considering standard resource conditions of a habitat and the influence of various generalized anthropogenic and natural factors. RAFI was developed using published literature on food abundance and validated by comparison of predictions versus observed trophic resources across various marine sites. RAFI tables here proposed can be applied to a range of marine ecosystems for predictions of the potential abundance of food available for each trophic group, hence permitting exploration of ecological theories by focusing on the deviation from the observed to the expected.消费者可获取的营养资源的丰度与分布格局，会影响自然群落的生产力与物种多样性。然而，由于不同研究者所采用的研究方法与度量指标存在差异，针对特定营养类群可获取食物的实际丰度进行评估的工作长期以来受到诸多限制。在此，我们构建了一套食物丰度指数，其框架可适配不同类型的生态系统。相对可获取食物指数（Relative Available Food Index, RAFI）通过考量栖息地的标准资源状况，以及各类广义人为与自然因素的影响进行计算。本指数依托已发表的食物丰度相关文献构建，并通过对比不同海洋生境下的预测值与实测营养资源数据完成了验证。本文提出的RAFI表格可应用于多种海洋生态系统，用以预测各营养类群可获取食物的潜在丰度，进而可通过聚焦实测值与预测值的偏差，为生态理论的探索提供支撑。