DOI: 10.5061/dryad.mcvdnck9r
title: Data from: Tropical biome switching: Ant communities transition from savanna to rainforest following cessation of burning

description: Savannas and rainforests co-occur as mosaics across large areas of the
 tropics. These mosaics are dynamic, with savanna and rainforest switching
 in relatively short-time scales, largely through the effects of fire. Most
 research to date focuses on assessing how this biome switching affects
 vegetation, with little attention given to faunal responses to transitions
 between savannas and rainforests. Aim: To assess faunal responses to biome
 switching from savanna to rainforest following 50 years of fire cessation.
 Location: Iron Range (Kutini-Payamu) on Australia's Cape York
 Peninsula. Taxon: Subterranean, leaf litter, epigaeic, and arboreal ant
 assemblages. Methods: We sampled ant assemblages using pitfall,
 subterranean and arboreal traps, and leaf litter extractions across
 different vegetation types: savanna, secondary forest, primary dry forest
 and primary wet forest. Results: We find a clear switch from savanna to
 rainforest ant communities and that the ant communities in secondary
 forest are very similar to that in primary forest. This is despite low
 similarity in floristic composition due to a poor representation of
 primary rainforest trees. However, the secondary forest is still missing a
 range of specialist forest taxa, especially cryptobiotic species from the
 soil and leaf litter, and possibly also specialist canopy species. Main
 conclusions: The current 50 yr-old secondary forest has much of the ant
 biodiversity value of primary rainforest, including for regionally endemic
 species that are rainforest specialists. This indicates that ant
 communities respond more strongly to vegetation structure than to plant
 species composition. However, some specialist taxa are not in secondary
 forests, and it is unclear under which circumstances they may reappear.
description: This dataset consists of data on subterranean, leaf litter,
 epigaeic and arboreal ant assemblages. It was collected using pitfall,
 subterranean and arboreal traps, and leaf litter extractions. These were
 placed in 9 sites in the Iron Range of the northern Cape York peninsula of
 Australia. The vegetation of these sites consisted of savanna, secondary
 forest, dry primary forest and wet primary forest. 
description: # Data from: Tropical biome switching: Ant communities transition from
 savanna to rainforest following cessation of burning
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.mcvdnck9r](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.mcvdnck9r) ## Description of the data and file structure These data (IR_ants_2022.csv) result from sampling at the Iron Range Research Station (IRRS) in northern Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia, done in June 2022. The sampling targeted subterranean, leaf litter, epigaeic, and arboreal ant assemblages in different vegetation types: savanna, secondary regrowth forest, primary dry forest, and primary wet forest. In total, we sampled 9 plots, deploying 180 pitfall traps, 180 arboreal traps, 360 subterranean traps, and undertook 28 Winkler leaf litter extractions.   ### Files and variables #### File: IR_ants_2022.csv **Description:** Raw data used for all analyses. ##### Variables and description | IRRS\_name | Site name as used at the Iron Range Research Station (IRRS) | | :-------------- | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | site\_name | Site name used in the study | | habitat | vegetation type as either savanna,  secondary regrowth forest, primary dry forest, or primary wet forest | | forest\_savanna | vegetation type as either savanna or forest (secondary regrowth, primary dry or primary wet) | | ll\_vol | The volume (ml) of leaf litter collected in the winkler extraction for that transect | | sampling\_date | The date of sampling: day (numerical), month (Roman), year (numerical) | | method | The sampling method, which is also equivalent to the assemblage stratum (i.e., pitfall = epigaeic, arboreal trap = arboreal, subterranean trap = subterranean, winkler = leaf litter) | | transect\_nb | The number associated with a transect within a plot. | | trap\_nb | The number associated with a trap within a plot for one method | | species | Name of species | | abundance | The number of ants of one species in a particular trap, capped at 50  | Note: 'NA' means not available or missing data. For instance, if a trap was missing, we entered the value 'NA' in the species and abundance columns. ## Code/software The only software needed to analyze our data and run our code is R.