An analysis of the effects of prior drying and vertebrate colonization on ecological functioning and vertebrate fitness

We investigated the legacy effects of drying and refilling of wetlands via mesocosms on growth and survival of recolonizing aquatic vertebrates and their subsequent effects on ecological function. Specifically, we tested the effects of prior drying on anuran and fish growth and survival (using Gompertz growth curves), and joint effects of vertebrates and drying on periphyton biomass, and whole-system gross primary productivity. Using 64 1,000-L hard plastic cattle tanks to create replicate aquatic mesocosms, four trophic treatments (no vertebrate control, larval anurans, fish, larval anurans and fish) were crossed with two drying treatments (undried and dried-refilled) to simulate different outcomes of colonization by two common vertebrate guilds and drying/refilling cycles. Mesocosms with anuran treatments received 50 Lithobates blairi tadpoles (1,600 total) and mesocosms with fish treatments received one Lepomis cyanellus juvenile (32 total). We recorded anuran growth rates, survival,..., All data were collected in the field at the location of the experimental study. All field data were entered into Excel sheet format and subsequently analyzed via the R Studio software program. The only modification to the collected data is the following: data from tank #1 were omitted from periphyton and gross primary productivity analyses due to a separate amphibian species ovipositing within that tank. , All statistical analyses were performed in RStudio version 4.1.1 (R Core Team, 2021). All packages required for the statistical analyses within the R program are listed at the top of each R script file. All files submitted are either .xslx or .Rmd file types and both Microsoft Excel and R Studio will be required to open the data files.本研究借助中型生态系统（mesocosms），探究了湿地干湿循环对重新定殖的水生脊椎动物生长与存活的遗留效应，以及此类脊椎动物对生态功能的后续影响。具体而言，本研究通过冈珀茨生长曲线（Gompertz growth curves）检验了前期干旱对无尾类（anuran）和鱼类的生长与存活的影响，并验证了脊椎动物与干旱的交互作用对周丛生物生物量（periphyton biomass）及全系统总初级生产力（gross primary productivity）的效应。本研究使用64个1000升硬质塑料牛饲料桶构建重复水生中型生态系统，将4种营养级处理（无脊椎动物对照组、无尾类幼体、鱼类、无尾类幼体+鱼类）与2种干旱处理（未干旱、干旱后重新注水）进行交叉实验，以模拟两类常见脊椎动物功能群定殖及干湿循环的不同情境。接受无尾类处理的中型生态系统单个投放50只布氏蛙（Lithobates blairi）蝌蚪，总计1600只；接受鱼类处理的单个投放1条青太阳鱼（Lepomis cyanellus）幼体，总计32条。本研究记录了无尾类的生长速率、存活率等指标，所有数据均在实验研究场地的野外环境中采集。所有野外数据均录入Excel工作表，随后通过R Studio软件进行分析。仅对采集的数据做了一处调整：由于另有两栖类物种在1号桶内产卵，因此在周丛生物生物量与总初级生产力分析中剔除了1号桶的相关数据。所有统计分析均在RStudio 4.1.1版本（R核心团队，2021）中完成。R程序中统计分析所需的所有软件包均列于每个R脚本文件的开头。提交的所有文件格式均为.xslx或.Rmd，因此需同时使用Microsoft Excel与R Studio方可打开全部数据文件。