Morphological Characteristics of Oysters from Predator Experiments at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, AL, May-July 2019

These data include oyster morphological characteristics after oysters were settled onto shells and either exposed to predator cues (caged blue crabs) or controls of no cues. Oysters were nursed in a flow-through seawater system at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab for two months starting in late May 2019. Afterward, subsets of oysters were assessed for shell strength, size, and dry weight using a Kistler force sensor and drying oven.

Predators often produce nonconsumptive effects (NCEs) in their prey in the form of behavioral or morphological changes. Such changes often have larger or equal consequences for population dynamics as the predator directly consumes individual prey. However, it is not well understood how predators feeding across multiple trophic levels cause cascading NCEs that interact across prey trophic levels or how the prey survival benefits from these interactions change across contexts. These data help demonstrate how NCEs can influence population dynamics across space and quantify the strength of these context-dependent interactions.

Data were collected by Drs. Benjamin Belgrad, Lee Smee, and Marc Weissburg from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and Georgia Institute of Technology.

本数据集收录了牡蛎附着于贝壳后的形态特征数据，实验分组包括暴露于捕食者信号（笼养蓝蟹）组与无信号对照组。实验所用牡蛎于2019年5月下旬起，在多芬岛海洋实验室（Dauphin Island Sea Lab）的流水海水系统中培育两个月。随后，研究人员使用奇石乐（Kistler）力传感器与干燥烘箱，对部分牡蛎的壳强度、尺寸与干重进行了测定。

捕食者通常会通过行为或形态变化的形式，对猎物产生非消耗性效应（nonconsumptive effects, NCEs）。这类变化对种群动态造成的影响，往往与捕食者直接捕食猎物个体所产生的影响相当甚至更强。但目前学界尚不清楚，跨多个营养级取食的捕食者如何引发跨猎物营养级相互作用的级联非消耗性效应，也不明确这些相互作用带来的猎物生存收益如何随环境背景变化。本数据集有助于阐明非消耗性效应如何在空间尺度上影响种群动态，并量化这些依赖于环境背景的相互作用的强度。

本数据集由来自多芬岛海洋实验室与佐治亚理工学院的Benjamin Belgrad、Lee Smee及Marc Weissburg博士团队采集。