Data for A 3D perspective on sediment turnover and feeding selectivity in blennies

Data for publication 'A 3D perspective on sediment turnover and feeding selectivity in blennies' (Marine Pollution Bulletin, 2022) which explored the extent to which the blenny, Ecsenius stictus, can shape sediment dynamics on coral reefs by quantifying their sediment ingestion and space use. 

‘Transect data for abundance.csv’ contains the transect data used to quantify blenny abundance and determine the most abundant species (Figure S4). The data used in the justification of the 120 second time limit can be found in the ‘Timed observations.csv’ file. ‘Blenny Ingested Sediment Data.csv’ file contains the amount of inorganic sediment mass in the digestive tracts of blennies used for sediment turnover calculations as well as the gutted body mass used for the comparison of sediment transporting species. This file also contains the standard length of these dissected E. stictus individuals, used in statistical analysis (Table S1). The ‘E. stictus artemia.csv’ file contains the number of artemia cysts found in each of the 5 digestive tract sections (from start to end of the gut) following the pre-determined exposure time to artemia. ‘Data for figure 2a.csv’ contains raw data of the inorganic sediment weight per square meter collected via vacuum sampling (Site) and inorganic sediment weight per square meter accumulated on TurfPods (Pod). ‘Data for figure 3 and Table S2.csv’ contains the minimum convex polygon (MCP) areas of occupancy, feeding and 50% KUD of feeding locations of each E. stictus over 6 days as well as the standard length, used in statistical analysis (Figure S5, Table S2). The raw data for the elevations of the random locations of the study site (n = 800) and within each site (n = 300 per site) used to compare the elevation of blenny habitats to the available elevations of the reef (Table S3) are found in the ‘Site and reef random.csv’ file. The elevations of the random locations within each site and the elevations of activity locations (standardised by the lowest point of the site) used to identify small scale elevation use of E. stictus (Figure 4) can be found in the ‘Data for figure 4.csv’ file. This data was used in statistical analysis (Table S3, S4).

Software/equipment used to create/collect the data: Nikon Coolpix W300 digital camera

Software/equipment used to manipulate/analyse the data: Agisoft Metashape Professional (version 1.5.1), ArcGIS (ArcMap version 10.7.1, ESRI) and R statistics software