The home-field advantage hypothesis (HFA) predicts that plant litter decomposes faster than expected underneath the plant from which it originates. We tested this hypothesis in a decomposition experiment where litters were incubated reciprocally in neighbouring European beech and Norway spruce forests. We analysed fungal communities in the litter through DNA metabarcoding and evaluated the effect of mesofauna (mites and springtails) on litter mass loss by using different litter-bag mesh sizes. Accounting for general differences in decomposition between litter and forest types, we found a significant home field advantage of 24%. Litter decomposed faster in the beech forest but spruce litter decomposed faster than beech litter. Fungal communities showed a clear dependency on both forest and litter type. Mesofauna did not affect litter mass loss rates or microbial species composition.
Final OTU/Sample data matrix
OTU-table with taxonomic annotation for OTUs and information on sample treatments
OTU-samples matrix.xlsx
Representative sequences for all OTUs
Unclustered representative sequences for all OTUs
FF_ITS_NC_uclustref_repset.fna
FF6_map
Barcode and primer mapping file
Raw sequences (forward reads) first part
First part of the bzip-compressed fastq-file containing raw sequences (forward reads) from Illumina HiSeq of pooled fungal DNA. Split with HJSplit as recommended by Dryad (http://wiki.datadryad.org/Large_File_Transfer).
FFL6_S1_L001_R1_001.fastq.gz.001
FFL6_S1_L001_R1_001.fastq.gz part 2
Second part of the bzip-compressed fastq-file containing raw sequences (forward reads) from Illumina HiSeq of pooled fungal DNA. Split with HJSplit as recommended by Dryad (http://wiki.datadryad.org/Large_File_Transfer).
FFL6_S1_L001_R1_001.fastq.gz.002
FFL6_S1_L001_R1_001.fastq.gz part3
Third part of the bzip-compressed fastq-file containing raw sequences (forward reads) from Illumina HiSeq of pooled fungal DNA. Split with HJSplit as recommended by Dryad (http://wiki.datadryad.org/Large_File_Transfer).
FFL6_S1_L001_R1_001.fastq.gz.003
FFL6_S1_L001_R1_001.fastq.gz part 4
Fourth part of the bzip-compressed fastq-file containing raw sequences (forward reads) from Illumina HiSeq of pooled fungal DNA. Split with HJSplit as recommended by Dryad (http://wiki.datadryad.org/Large_File_Transfer).
FFL6_S1_L001_R1_001.fastq.gz.004
FFL6_S1_L001_R2_001.fastq.gz part1
First part of the bzip-compressed fastq-file containing raw sequences (reverse reads) from Illumina HiSeq of pooled fungal DNA. Split with HJSplit as recommended by Dryad (http://wiki.datadryad.org/Large_File_Transfer).
FFL6_S1_L001_R2_001.fastq.gz.001
FFL6_S1_L001_R2_001.fastq.gz part2
Second part of the bzip-compressed fastq-file containing raw sequences (reverse reads) from Illumina HiSeq of pooled fungal DNA. Split with HJSplit as recommended by Dryad (http://wiki.datadryad.org/Large_File_Transfer).
FFL6_S1_L001_R2_001.fastq.gz.002
FFL6_S1_L001_R2_001.fastq.gz part3
Third part of the bzip-compressed fastq-file containing raw sequences (reverse reads) from Illumina HiSeq of pooled fungal DNA. Split with HJSplit as recommended by Dryad (http://wiki.datadryad.org/Large_File_Transfer).
FFL6_S1_L001_R2_001.fastq.gz.003
FFL6_S1_L001_R2_001.fastq.gz part4
Fourth part of the bzip-compressed fastq-file containing raw sequences (reverse reads) from Illumina HiSeq of pooled fungal DNA. Split with HJSplit as recommended by Dryad (http://wiki.datadryad.org/Large_File_Transfer).
FFL6_S1_L001_R2_001.fastq.gz.004
FFL6_S1_L001_R2_001.fastq.gz part 5
Final part of the bzip-compressed fastq-file containing raw sequences (reverse reads) from Illumina HiSeq of pooled fungal DNA. Split with HJSplit as recommended by Dryad (http://wiki.datadryad.org/Large_File_Transfer).
FFL6_S1_L001_R2_001.fastq.gz.005
