Fall 2022 crab population monitoring: mid-marsh and creek bank abundance based on crab hole counts at GCE marsh, monitoring sites 1-10

This data set is the Fall 2022 estimate of crab densities at the GCE-LTER marsh sites used for population monitoring. Crab abundance was determined by counting the number of crab holes within a 625 cm^2 quadrat and converting the counts to number per square meter. Counts were made in the mid-marsh and creek bank zones (n = 4 per zone) at GCE sites 1 through 10. Note that this census method does not differentiate which species made a particular hole and therefore only estimates total burrowing crab abundance, potentially including species Uca pugnax, Uca minax, Uca pugilator, Armases cinereum, Eurytium limosum and Sesarma reticulatum. Crab holes that are not actively maintained are quickly covered by tidal activity and other sediment disturbances, therefore plugged holes were assumed to be unoccupied and excluded from the counts.本数据集为2022年秋季针对用于种群监测的GCE-LTER沼泽站点开展的蟹类密度估算成果。蟹类丰度通过计数625平方厘米样方（quadrat）内的蟹洞数量，并将计数结果换算为每平方米的个体数予以确定。调查覆盖GCE第1至10号站点的沼泽中部与溪岸带，每个区域设置4个重复样方（n=4）。需注意，本次普查方法无法区分单个蟹洞所属的物种，因此仅能估算穴居蟹类的总丰度，潜在涵盖物种包括Uca pugnax、Uca minax、Uca pugilator、Armases cinereum、Eurytium limosum及Sesarma reticulatum。未被持续维护的蟹洞会因潮汐活动与其他沉积物扰动迅速被掩埋，因此本研究将堵塞的蟹洞视为未被占用，并将其从计数结果中剔除。