Abundance of intertidal algae and invertebrates on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia

In 2008 as part of university masters thesis project two studies were completed, one experimental and one mensurative, on the abundance of primary producers and consumers from rocky intertidal habitats in Atlantic Canada. As part of the mensurative study, four wave-sheltered locations were sampled spanning 350 km of Nova Scotia coastline. Data from that study describe the abundance of seaweeds and invertebrates found at three tidal elevation zones (high, middle, and low) for a total of 1170 quadrats. Measurements include the abundance (percent cover) of the different taxa found at each quadrat using a 20 cm × 20 cm frame. For data associated with the manipulative part of the study see Watt and Scrosati 2014. Because of its taxonomic amplitude and coverage of a wide environmental stress gradient, this data set is potentially useful to address in novel or infrequent ways other broad ecological issues, such as abundance–occupancy relationships, species co-occurrence, species abundance distributions, dominance and rarity, spatial scales of population and community variability, and distribution of phylogenetic diversity. This dataset includes both presence and absence occurrence records.