Data from: Integrating abundance and diet data to improve inferences of food web dynamics ...

• Main Authors: Ferguson, Jake M., Hopkins III., John B., Witteveen, Brianna H., Hopkins, John B., Witteveen, Briana H.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2019
• Subjects: ecological tracers; nonlinear time series; Megaptera novaeangliae; Mallotus villosus; Theragra chalcogramma; multispecies modeling; food web model; Clupea pallasii; integrated modeling; Gulf of Alaska; Humpback Whale; Alaska
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5q136q2; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.5q136q2

1. Both population abundances and chemical tracers are useful tools for studying consumer-resource interactions. Food web models parameterized with abundances are often used to understand how interactions structure communities and to inform management decisions of complex ecological systems. Unfortunately, collecting abundance data to parameterize these models is often expensive and time-consuming. Another approach is to use chemical tracers to estimate the proportional diets of consumers by relating the tracers in their tissues to those found in their food sources. Although tracer data are often inexpensive to collect relative to abundances, diet proportions provide little information on the per-capita consumption rates of consumers. Here, we show how integrating these data sources can be used to better estimate of consumption rates. 2. Our modeling approach informs traditional multispecies population abundance models using proportional diet data. We used simulations to determine whether integrated food web ... : Estimated abundances and diets of whalesThis file contains the estimated densities and diets of humpback whales. The abundances tab contains abundance estimates of humpbacks and densities of zooplankton and fish from 2004, 2005, 2007, 2012, 2013, and 2014. Each estimate has an associated standard error.AbundanceDiet_data.xlsxStable isotope dataThis file contains all the information necessary to estimate diet proportions of this humpback whale population using mixture models. Mixture tabs are the observed mixture for each year. Sources tab is the end member measurements, SourcesCD tab is the concentrations used in the analysis, and the DiscrimSD tab are the discrimination errors.SIA_data.xlsxCode to run abundance and integrated modelsThis R code defines and runs the abundance and integrated models for estimating the feeding rates of humpback whales in the western Gulf of Alaska. Requires R and Just Another Gibbs Sampler (JAGS). Requires the AbundanceDiet_data.xlsx file that is in this repository.WhaleMCMC.R ...