Is there a connection between melee damage and resource collection?

I have been told that there is a connection between melee damage, tool type and tool level when collecting resources from their sources.

Is there a known formula for the harvesting of resources in ARK?

Yes there is a connection between melee damage and resource collection.

This is especially evident with tamed dinos such as the Ankylosaurus or the Beezlebufo.

I don't have a specific formula but the relationship goes something like this:

Let's say you have a tamed dino at 100% melee damage. They also have a base attack damage value which correlates to a certain amount of gathered resources per hit. (Different resources for different dinos)

If you've leveled up melee damage to say 200%, that is now 2 times the original base attack damage and I would surmise that the resource gathering increase correlates to 2 times as well.

You will eventually hit a wall where the attack damage is >= the resource health value and 1 or 2 strikes will completely harvest it. You can't really get more than is available in any given chunk but you can increase your rate of harvesting.

This is based off of experience/observation and may not be 100% correct.