Effect of phenotypic variation on dogwhelk morphology during an eco-evolutionary field experiment from 2021-07-20 to 2022-08-29 (NCEI Accession 0291619)

This dataset contains physical data collected in the North Pacific Ocean from 2021-07-20 to 2022-08-29. These data include tide. The instruments used to collect these data include Levels and staffs and labeling tag. These data were collected by Eric Sanford of University of California-Davis as part of the "Coastal mosaics of local adaptation and the eco-evolutionary dynamics of a marine predator-prey interaction (Coastal Adaptation)" project. The Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) submitted these data to NCEI on 2024-01-26.

The following is the text of the dataset description provided by BCO-DMO:

Effect of phenotypic variation on dogwhelk morphology during eco-evolutionary field experiment

Dataset Description:
Methods and Sampling:
Dogwhelks ( Nucella canaliculata ) were reared in the lab from hatching on four early-life diet treatments (thin-shelled Mytilus trossulus , two treatments of M. californianus from two populations known to differ in adult shell thickness, and acorn barnacles). Adult dogwhelks were outplanted to field cages in July of 2021. The tidal height of each cage was measured relative to Mean Lower Low Water (MLLW) using a rotary laser level (DeWalt DW071). Five dogwhelks from the same family (i.e., dogwhelks from the same egg capsule cluster) and early-life diet treatment were placed in each of the cages. Prior to the outplant, the length of dogwhelks was measured with digital calipers, the sex was determined with visual inspection, and the snails were individually marked with small tags (Floy Tags). Cages were checked every 8 weeks for the next year. If a dogwhelk was dead, it was replaced with another dogwhelk from the same family by diet treatment. At the end of the experiment, the length of the snails was remeasured.