DOI: 10.5061/dryad.7d7wm384x
title: Raw data of the microarthropods and decomposition from: Effects of microarthropod density on soil fungal community composition in nutrient-poor ecosystems

description: Microarthropods such as mites (Acari) and springtails (Collembola) play a
 key role in the functioning of nutrient-poor ecosystems. They contribute
 to the comminution of organic matter and they are likely to affect the
 structure and function of soil microbial communities through grazing and
 by changing substrate availability. However, the precise effects of their
 interactions with microbiota remain poorly understood. In the
 present study, we conducted a mesocosm field experiment to determine the
 effects of soil microarthropod density on community composition of soil
 fungi. We manipulated microarthropod densities in 100 defaunated and
 soil-filled meshed mesocosms by inoculating half of the units with
 microarthropods (i.e. high density treatment), while the other half of the
 units only contained few specimens possibly hatching from recalcitrant
 eggs that survived defaunation (i.e. low density treatment). All mesocosms
 were then inserted in the top soil of a range of nutrient-poor grasslands
 and heathlands in Belgium for the duration of three months. The entire
 mesocosms were composed of mesh (30 µm mesh size) to allow for a rapid
 (re-)colonization by microbes from the surrounding soils, while migration
 of microarthropods in or out of the mesocosms was precluded. Litter bags
 (30 µm mesh size) containing two types of organic matter were also buried
 within each mesocosm, and organic matter mass loss over time was used as a
 proxy to assess effects of microarthropod density on microbe-regulated
 decomposition rates. We found that fungal community composition
 differed strongly between the two microarthropod density treatments,
 regardless of habitat type. The mesocosms with higher microarthropod
 densities were characterized by a higher number of fungal OTUs and a
 higher number of fungal indicator species associated to this treatment.
 Microarthropod density, however, did not affect microbe-regulated organic
 matter decomposition rates, nor did it affect relative abundances of
 putative fungal functional groups, thus suggesting considerable levels of
 fungal functional overlap. Synthesis: The lack of measurable changes in
 organic matter decomposition or shifts in fungal functional group
 representation suggest that effects of microarthropods on the functioning
 of fungal communities may be lower than originally thought.
description: This dataset was collected during a three-month mesocosm
 experiment taking place in different nutrient-poor habitats (heathland,
 Nardus grassland, and restored grassland). It includes data on the number
 of microarthropods (mites and springtails) for three treatment levels i.e.
 low density, high density, and reference, and the decomposition outcomes
 for two litter types i.e. heather and cellulose. We verified whether the
 inoculated (treatment H) and control (treatment L) mesocosms indeed
 differed in microarthropod density, using a generalized linear model using
 Poisson regression or quasipoisson regression for over-dispersed data;
 sites 4 (grassland) and 10 (heathland) (7 samples each) were excluded from
 further data analysis due to errors in the inoculation processes. For the
 decomposition experiment we calculated weight loss after three months of
 the two incubated organic matter types, after which we  estimated
 decomposition rates using the first order decay constant (k).
 The effects on fungal communities were also assessed by
 processing the sequencing data referenced as related works.
description: # Raw data of the microarthropods and decomposition from: Effects of
 microarthropod density on soil fungal community composition in
 nutrient-poor ecosystems
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.7d7wm384x](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.7d7wm384x) ## Description of the data and file structure The data was collected to verify whether the inoculated (treatment H) and control (treatment L) mesocosms differed in microarthropod density. Once verified, we collected further data to assess the effect of microarthropod densities on litter decomposition and fungal communities. ### Files and variables #### File: Salazar-Fillippo\_et\_al\_2024c\_raw\_data.txt **Description:** Dataset of microarthropod counts and decomposition for different treatments and habitat types. ##### Variables * Location: Site number. * Treatment: Different levels of microarthropod densities as follows - C (low), F (high), and P (reference). The reference refers to soil taken at the sites and without microarthropod density manipulations.  * Replica: Replicate number per site and treatment. * Label: Sample label. * Short: Summary of the sample label. * Code: Code for the sequenced samples. * K_h: First order decay constant for heather decomposition. * K_c: First order decay constant for cellulose decomposition. * Sequencing: Indicator of whether the sample was sequenced or not. * Extraction: Sequencing code. * Vegetation: Habitat type (Grassland, Heath, or Reference -referring to Nardus grassland-). * Collembola: Number of collembola. * Mite: Number of mites. * Fauna: Number of microarthropods (collembola + mites).           Missing data: n/a ## Code/software We used R v. 4.0.2 to process the data.