Dataset: Kelpforest All Nodes

The purpose of the Kelpforest Database is to serve as a repository for the knowledge of the identities, life-histories, and interactions between the species present in the nearshore kelp forest ecosystems of the eastern Pacific, focusing in particular on central and southern California. The information that it houses will aid in the interpretation of species’ spatial and temporal patterns  (stemming from PISCO, http://www.piscoweb.org/, and surveys performed by the USGS), and will serve as the basis on which to construct and parameterize mathematical models of these species rich communities (including EcoPath).

The database is literature-based; its format thereby differs from that of the typical ecological database in being citation-based, rather than species- or interaction-based. Each entered value (e.g., a species’ body size) is associated with an appropriate citation. The most notable consequence of this design is that multiple values (each from a different source citation) are permitted for the same entry field.

This dataset is an alphabetical list of all the nodes in the database and contains information including species working name, functional group, and its native status (native, non-native, or unknown)