DOI: 10.5061/dryad.0p2ngf27s
title: Roadside disturbance promotes plant communities with arbuscular mycorrhizal associations in mountain regions worldwide

description: Aim: We aimed to assess the impact of road disturbances on the dominant
 mycorrhizal types in ecosystems at the global level and how this mechanism
 can potentially lead to lasting plant community changes. Location:
 Globally distributed mountain regions Time Period: 2007-2018 Taxa studied:
 Plants (linked to their associated mycorrhizal fungi) Methods: We used a
 database of coordinated plant community surveys following mountain roads
 from 894 plots in 11 mountain regions across the globe in combination with
 an existing database of mycorrhizal-plant associations in order to
 approximate the relative abundance of mycorrhizal types in natural and
 disturbed environments. Results: Our findings show that roadside
 disturbance promotes the cover of plants associated with arbuscular
 mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. This effect is especially strong in colder
 mountain environments and in mountain regions where plant communities are
 dominated by ectomycorrhizal (EcM) or ericoid-mycorrhizal (ErM)
 associations. Furthermore, non-native plant species, which we confirmed to
 be mostly AM plants, are more successful in environments dominated by AM
 associations. Main Conclusions: These biogeographical patterns suggest
 that changes in mycorrhizal types could be a crucial factor in the
 worldwide impact of anthropogenic disturbances on mountain ecosystems.
 Indeed, roadsides foster AM-dominated systems, where AM-fungi might aid
 AM-associated plant species while potentially reducing the biotic
 resistance against invasive non-native species, often also associated with
 AM networks. Restoration efforts in mountain ecosystems will have to
 contend with changes in the fundamental make-up of EcM- and ErM plant
 communities induced by roadside disturbance.
description: Combination of the long-term vegetation monitoring dataset from
 MIREN (www.mountaininvasions.org) with a database of mycorrhizal
 associations (FungalRoots). For more details, see the paper.
description: # Roadside disturbance promotes plant communities with arbuscular
 mycorrhizal associations in mountain regions worldwide
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0p2ngf27s](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0p2ngf27s) This dataset contains the relevant subsets of the MIREN database and the associated extractions from the FungalRoot-database, as used in the underlying analysis. ## Description of the data and file structure Included datasets: 1. Miren species data_DRYAD.xlsx: Species observations per plots across all of the MIREN regions, containing the following columns: 1. name.region - Species name, followed by region code, to uniquely identify the species per region. 2. Site - Site code, consisting of the region (e.g., AUN), road (e.g., AK), transect (e.g., 01) and plot (e.g., 1). For details on the study design, see the paper. 3. Cover - cover class (1 to 7, 1 = &lt;1%; 2 = 1 to 5%; 3 = 5 to 25%; 4 = 25 to 50%; 5 = 50 to 75%; 6 = 75 to 95%; and 7 = 95–100%). If NA, no cover was assessed that year (thus only presence-absence data presented here. 4. Year - year of survey 5. Accepted.name.MIREN - accepted species name as used in the MIREN database, standardized across regions. For more details, see Haider et al. 2021, Ecology & Evolution. 6. Region - three letter code for the region. For all regions, see the paper. 7. Status - Alien, Native, or Unknown. 2. Miren plot metadata_DRYAD.xlsx: plot-level metadata, including the following columns: 1. pidn - Unique identifier of the plot for a specific date 2. Site - Site code, consisting of the region (e.g., AUN), road (e.g., AK), transect (e.g., 01) and plot (e.g., 1). For details on the study design, see the paper. 3. region - see Site 4. road - see Site 5. year - year of the survey (2007, 2012 or 2017, with sites surveyed in e.g., december 2006 included under 2007). 6. transect - see Site 7. plot - see Site 8. elevation - plot-level elevation above sea level (in meters) 9. lat - latitude, in decimal degrees, WGS84 10. long - longitude, in decimal degrees, WGS84 11. date - actual date of the survey, in DDMMYY 12. road_type - categorical, gravel, asphalt or dirtroad NAs are possible if information was not measured in the field for a particular plot, year and/or region. 3. Miren Temperature Data.csv: plot-level climate data, including the following columns:and soil temperature (SBio1), and the , respectively. 1. Site - Site code, consisting of the region (e.g., AUN), road (e.g., AK), transect (e.g., 01) and plot (e.g., 1). For details on the study design, see the paper. 2. SBio1_MIREN - mean annual soil temperature extracted from the Global maps of soil temperature [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.16060](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.16060) based on the plot-level coordinates. In °C. 3. Bio1_MIREN - mean annual air temperature extracted from CHELSA (chelsa-climate.org) based on the plot-level coordinates. In °C. NAs are possible if a certain point did not fall within a pixel of the gridded climate products (e.g., due to it being too close to the ocean). 4. FungalRoot genus level_DRYAD.xlsx: a table including all genera observed within the study, with their genus-level mycorrhizal type as extracted from the FungalRoot-database. Contains the following columns: 1. Genus - Plant genus name 2. Mycorrhizal type - AM = Arbuscular mycorrhiza, EcM = Ecto-mycorrhiza, ErM = ericoid mycorrhiza, OM = orchid mycorrhiza, NM = non-mycorrhizal, uncertain = unknown. \ Combinations of two mycorrhizal types (especially with NM) are possible. 5. FungalRoot species level_DRYAD.xlsx: a table extracted from the FungalRoot-database, including species with their species-level mycorrhizal type (wherever available), containing the following columns: 1. species - species name 2. Mycorrhizal type - AM = Arbuscular mycorrhiza, EcM = Ecto-mycorrhiza, ErM = ericoid mycorrhiza, OM = orchid mycorrhiza, non-mycorrhizal = non-mycorrhizal (checked for all types indicates relative certainty that no mycorrhiza are present)\ 'Others not addressed' means that the presence of other mycorrhizal types has not been verified, yet usually the mentioned mycorrhizal type is dominant.\ 'No others' means that the presence of other mycorrhizal types has been checked.\ Species might be mentioned multiple times when assessed by multiple sources (for more details, see the FungalRoot-database itself) ## Sharing/Access information Data was derived from the following main sources: * The Mountain Invasion Research Network: [https://zenodo.org/records/5529072](https://zenodo.org/records/5529072) * The FungalRoot database: [https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.16569](https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.16569)