Stable isotopes reveal intertidal fish and crabs use shellfish farms as foraging habitat in Puget Sound, Washington

This is the dataset used for my second thesis chapter. The data consists of carbon and nitrogen stable isotope data collected in 3 locations in North Puget Sound in 2020-2022. Locations are Samish Bay, Padilla Bay, and Drayton Harbor. Stable isotope data is presented in standard permil format, with values referenced from the Vienna Pee Dee Belemnite and atmospheric nitrogen standards, which are the international reference standards commonly used as isotopic references for carbon and nitrogen. 

Primary productivity samples, snails, oysters, and clams were collected by hand at low tide. Fish and crabs were collected via beach seine and crab pots deployed concurrently with seining. 

Samples were collected either within bivalve farms, or within eelgrass meadow reference sites outside of farmed areas.

All code and data necessary to reproduce the analysis is available via my Github page. 

The metadata spreadsheet contains descriptions of each column in the datasheet.

For more information, see my chapter 2 thesis.