DOI: 10.5061/dryad.pvmcvdnsg
title: Data from: Direct and higher-order interactions in plant communities under increasing weather persistence

description: Climate change is increasing the weather persistence in the mid-latitudes,
 prolonging both dry and wet spells compared to historic averages. These
 newly emerging environmental conditions destabilize plant communities, but
 the role of species interactions in this process is unknown. Here, we
 tested how direct and higher-order interactions (HOIs) between species may
 change in synthesized grassland communities along an experimental gradient
 of increasing persistence in precipitation regimes. Our results indicate
 that species interactions (including HOIs) are an important determinant of
 plant performance under increasing weather persistence. Out of the 12 most
 parsimonious models predicting species productivity, 75 % contained
 significant direct interactions and 92 % significant HOIs. Inclusion of
 direct interactions or HOIs respectively tripled or quadrupled the
 explained variance of target species biomass compared to null models only
 including the precipitation treatment. Drought was the main driver of
 plant responses, with longer droughts increasing direct competition but
 also HOI-driven facilitation. Despite these counteracting changes, drought
 intensified net competition. Grasses were generally more involved in
 competitive interactions whereas legumes were more involved in
 facilitative interactions. Under longer drought, species affinity for
 nutrient rich or wet environments resulted in more negative direct
 interactions or HOIs, respectively. We conclude that higher-order
 interactions, crucially depending on species identity, only partially
 stabilize community dynamics under increasing weather persistence.
description: # Direct and higher-order interactions in plant communities under
 increasing weather persistence
 This dataset includes
 aboveground dried biomass data per species (3 individuals per mesocosms
 pooled together) of all treatments utilized in the experiment. All biomass
 above 4.5 cm was harvested at the end of the experiment between 28/10/2019
 - 8/11/2019, oven dried at 70 °C for &gt; 72 h and then immediately
 weighed to the closest 0.01 g. For further information regarding the
 utilized methodology, please refer to the methods section in the published
 article: 10.1111/oik.10128. ## Description of the data and file structure
 The file uploaded is in .xlsx format with two tabs, the first including
 metadata, and the second the actual dataset in LONG format. The different
 column headers include: | Column header | Description | |
 ----------------------------------------------- |
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Date:  | The date  on which the measurment was taken (DD/MM/YYYY). | | Fati: | The plot/FATI number including 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12 (for more explanation on the FATI platform visit ). | | Pot: | The pot/mesocosm label. For further information see methods section of the publication. | | Treatment: | Refers to the treatment and made up by the number of days with or without precipitation (irrigation) followed by the letter D or W for dry or wet start (16 unique combinations: 1W, 1D, 3W, 3D, 6W, 6D, 10W, 10D, 15W, 15D, 20W, 20D, 30W, 30D, 60W, 60D) | | DW: | Refers to dry (D) or wet start (W) treatments. | | Letter: | Refer to species names including A (Agrostis capillaris), B (Plantago lanceolata), C (Centaurea Jacea), D (Trifolium pratense), E (Poa pratensis), F (Deschampsia cespitosa), G (Anthoxanthum odoratum), H (Holcus lanatus), I (Trifolium medium), J (Lotus corniculatus), K (Lychnis flos-cuculi) and L (Phleum pratense). See figure S1 in supplement for details.  | | Fctgrp: | Refers to the functional group of the species (N-fixer, Forb, Grass) and whether it was in a treatment with dry (D) or wet (W) start. See methods section of publication for details.  | | Days: | Refers to the length of the wet/dry spells in the number of consecutive days with or without irrigation. | | Species: | Abbreviation of the species names including AC (Agrostis capillaris), AO (Anthoxanthum odoratum), DC (Deschampsia cespitosa), HL (Holcus lanatus), PHP (Phleum pratensis), POP (Poa pratensis), LC (Lotus corniculatus), TM (Trifolium medium), TP (Trifolium pratense), SF (Lychnis flos-cuculi), CJ (Centaurea jacea), PL (Plantago lanceolata). See methods section in publication for details. | | Dry weight (g) (corrected for # of individuals) | Combined dry weight of the three individuals of the specific species per pot in grams (corrected when one of them was harvested) | ## Sharing/Access information Related dataset for weather variables and soil water content: Links to other publicly accessible locations of the data: