Data from: Tropical ant communities under agroforestry can be diverse but lack trait-and-environment associations
Data files
Apr 22, 2025 version files 43.28 KB
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Dryad_data.xlsx
41.22 KB
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README.md
2.07 KB
Abstract
Human landuse often alters community composition that affects many related ecosystem functions. However, intermediate-intensity landuse, such as agroforestry, can be a refuge for biodiversity and can maintain ecosystem functions and services in working landscapes. We quantified how the alpha and beta diversity of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) vary with human landuse in the Kodagu region of the Western Ghats, India, across four landuse types (forests, forest fragments, and two types of coffee plantations with either native or non-native shade trees). We studied ants, as they perform a wide range of ecological functions such as predation, herbivory, seed dispersal, decomposition, etc. in such landscapes. We also assessed the functional diversity of ants and estimated the interactions between their traits and the environment. We found that the plantations, on average, had 26% lower species richness than forests and forest fragments, and functional richness was 31% lower in non-native plantations. However, plantations showed higher beta diversity than forests at both taxonomic and functional levels. Interestingly, turnover was higher in non-native than native plantations by 32% and 24% at taxonomic and functional levels, respectively. Plantations also had weak and few ants’ trait-and-environment interactions, suggesting that environmental filters may not be influential in structuring ant communities under human landuse, compared to forests. Overall, while ant communities under human landuse differ from that in forests, they can be heterogeneous and be able to perform similar functions. Our findings highlight the importance of agroforestry as working landscapes which can maintain biodiversity and ecosystem functions.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.xd2547dtt
Description of the data and file structure
Dryad_data.xlsx: contains the data on the abundances of ants found across land use.
- sp-site: contains the species by site matrix of ant abundances across the four different land uses.
- The column landuse indicates the landuse of the site- Forest (fr), Fragment (fg), Native shaded coffee (Native/ns), Non-native shaded coffee (Non-native/si).
- The column Transect indicates the transect number in the respective site.
- The columns (D - DA) represent the species (refer to sp-trait of the data or S1 for the abbreviated species names)
- sp-trait: contains the species by trait matrix of the species along with the species code and the scientific name.
- The traits include Weber’s length, head length, eye width, scape length, femur length, spines, worker polymorphism, nest site, and diet. The trait values of head length, eye width, scape length, femur length were standardized for body size (Weber's length). Dummy scores (0/1) are used with an individual column for each category represent the six types of nest sites (hypogaeic, rocks, litter, wood, arboreal, and leaves) and seven types of diet (generalist, generalist-sugar feeder, generalist-seed harvester, generalist-predator, seed harvester, specialist-predator, honeydew) as these traits are not directional.
- The head length, eye width, scape length and femur length's are relativized with the Weber's length (mm) and are dimensionless.
- site-environment: site level environmental data collected at the time of collection
- Environmental variables include - canopy cover (%), litter (weight in g), soil surface temperature (°C), soil-subsurface temperature (°C), and leaf litter temperature (°C), ambient air temperature (°C), humidity (%), soil moisture (1-10 scale) and soil pH.
- NA values indicate missing information at the site