DOI: 10.5061/dryad.zs7h44jbp
title: Data from: Partitioning the effects of plant diversity on ecosystem functions at different trophic levels

description: Biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning can be partitioned into
 complementarity effects, driven by many species, and selection effects,
 driven by few. Selection effects occur through interspecific abundance
 shifts (dominance) and intraspecific shifts in functioning.
 Complementarity and selection effects are often calculated for biomass,
 but very rarely for secondary productivity, i.e. energy transfer to higher
 trophic levels. We calculated diversity effects for three functions:
 aboveground biomass, insect herbivory and pathogen infection, the latter
 two as proxies for energy transfer to higher trophic levels, in a
 grassland experiment (PaNDiv) manipulating species richness, functional
 composition, nitrogen enrichment and fungicide treatment. Complementarity
 effects were on average positive and selection effects negative for
 biomass production and pathogen infection and multiple species contributed
 to diversity effects in mixtures. Diversity effects were on average less
 pronounced for herbivory. Diversity effects for the three functions were
 not correlated, because different species drove the different diversity
 effects. Benefits (and costs) from growing in diverse communities, be it
 reduced herbivore or pathogen damage or increased productivity either due
 to abundance increases or increased productivity per area were distributed
 across different plant species, leading to highly variable contributions
 of single species to diversity effects on different functions. These
 results show that different underlying ecological mechanisms can result in
 similar overall diversity effects across functions.
description: For full details on data collection see the associated
 publication.
description: Please see the readme file for a description of the datasets
 included and meta data on the variables.
description: # Data from: Partitioning the effects of plant diversity on ecosystem
 functions at different trophic levels
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.zs7h44jbp](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.zs7h44jbp) ## Description of the data and file structure This data is from the PaNDiv experiment. Methodological details can be found in the associated manuscript. ### Files and variables #### File: Plot\_information.csv **Description:** Treatment information for the plots ##### Variables * Bock: unique Block number(1-4) * Plot: unique plot number (1-336) * Nitrogen: fertilization information (0 = no fertilizer, 1 = nitrogen added) * Fungicide: pathogen exclusion treatment (0 = control, 1 = fungicide) * composition: plant species composition index (string indicating species richness (first number), unique species combination (second number), and whether the comination of species was assembled from the fast (f), slow (s) or mixed (m) species pool). Monocultures have the species abbreviation to indicate composition. * Species_diversity: number of species sown in a plot. (1, 4, 8 or 20) * Sown sla: Mean SLA of sown species * Sown mpd sla: Mean pairwise difference in SLA of sown species. * Notes: Excluded monocultures for the analysis are flagged. #### File: Species\_information.csv **Description:** Information on plant species in PaNDiv ##### Variables * Species: Species abbreviation * Binomial\_ name: Binomial species name * Pool: Species pool to which the species belongs (F: fast growing species, S: slow growing species) * Notes: Species that were excluded for the analysis in the associated manuscript are flagged #### File: Abundance.csv **Description:** relative abundance (cover) of species per plot and timepoint ##### Variables * Plot: unique plot number (1-336) * Harvest: time point when the data was collected (J17 = June 2017, A17 = August 2017, J18 = June 2018, A18 = August 2018) * Species: Species abbreviation (full name can be found in the species information data sheet) * Abundance: relative abundance of the species (proportion of cover. visually estimated) #### File: Biomass.csv **Description:** plant biomass collected 5cm above ground in each plot and time point ##### Variables * Plot: unique plot number (1-336) * Harvest: time point when the data was collected (J17 = June 2017, A17 = August 2017, J18 = June 2018, A18 = August 2018) * Species: Species abbreviation (full name can be found in the species information data sheet) - Biomass: Species biomass calculated based on plot biomass and relative abundance [g/m^2] - Notes: notes #### File: Pathogen\_infection.csv **Description:** Pathogen infection measured as proportion of individuals with disease symptoms per species, plot and timepoitn ##### Variables * Plot: unique plot number (1-336) * Harvest: time point when the data was collected (J17 = June 2017, A17 = August 2017, J18 = June 2018, A18 = August 2018) * Species: Species abbreviation (full name can be found in the species information data sheet) - Infection: Proportion of individuals with diseases symptoms - Notes: notes #### File: Insect\_herbivory.csv **Description:**  Herbivory measured as proportion of individuals with herbivory symptoms per species, plot and timepoitn ##### Variables * Plot: unique plot number (1-336) * Harvest: time point when the data was collected (J17 = June 2017, A17 = August 2017, J18 = June 2018, A18 = August 2018) * Species: Species abbreviation (full name can be found in the species information data sheet) - Herbivory: Proportion of individuals with herbivory symptoms - Notes: notes ## Access information Other publicly accessible locations of the data: * NA Data was derived from the following sources: * own data