University of Michigan Biological Station cumulative food web data for terrestrial habitats, 1909-2023.

Here, we present species and interaction lists for a food web of the aboveground terrestrial habitats at the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS). The site is composed predominantly of dry-mesic, northern hardwood forests with patches of wooded wetlands (hardwood conifer swamp). Taxa were sourced from lists provided by UMBS, from resident biologists’ personal observations, museum specimens, online databases, historical censuses, and BioBlitz events. Only those that could be resolved to species-level or were genera with < 20 species in the Nearctic were included. We also excluded species that do not have a significant lifestage or feeding behavior in aboveground terrestrial habitats. Our focal taxonomic groups include vascular plants, arthropods, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians. The majority of arthropods are insects; non-insect arthropods were highly underrepresented in our lists. Interactions were sourced from online databases, naturalist observations, and field guides and accumulated into a “metaweb” of all potential interactions between local species. Interactions were checked by experts to plausibly occur in the aboveground terrestrial environments at UMBS, given species’ phenology, traits, and habitat usage. Interactions at any taxonomic level were included, so long as they were approved to potentially occur between all species by our experts. To study the effect of taxonomic resolution on food web structure, in this dataset, we retained records at coarser taxonomic groupings even if more highly resolved records were also approved. We included all direct interactions among species in our system with a bioenergetic flow (i.e., one species consuming another), differentiated by their focal resource. We broadly categorized the resources as animal tissues, either (1) live tissues and as prey, or (2) scavenged as carrion, carcasses, or other decaying animal remains, or as plant tissues, grouped as (3) leaves and stems, including grasses, exudates, et