DOI: 10.5061/dryad.73n5tb33w
title: Data from: Preference for mammalian urine is higher in the canopy than on the ground in a tropical rainforest ant community in Yunnan, China

description: Ants are among the most abundant groups of arthropods, and approximately
 half of all ant species are associated with forest canopies. The forest
 canopy environment is distinct from the understory and forest floor, and
 vertical stratification in environmental conditions shapes species
 assembly and organismal traits and behaviors across taxa in forest
 communities. Canopy ants are faced with a more nitrogen-limited
 environment compared with ground ants because of their reliance on
 nitrogen-poor plant and insect exudates. Despite prior work suggesting
 that some ant species consume mammalian urine and use symbiotic bacteria
 to extract nitrogen, we have little knowledge about the consumption of
 urine in canopy ants or the relative preference for urine between ground
 and canopy ants. We conducted an observational field experiment in a
 lowland tropical rainforest in southern China to test for vertical
 stratification in ant preference for sugar and urine, setting ground and
 canopy baited pitfall traps with the use of a canopy crane. We found
 distinct vertical stratification in the use of urine, with higher richness
 and abundance in sugar baits on the ground, and a higher abundance in
 urine baits in the canopy. Furthermore, the composition of captured ants
 differentiated according to both vertical stratum and bait type. This
 distinct vertical stratification of niche preference may represent an
 important case of niche partitioning that contributes to high ant species
 diversity in tropical rainforests as well as high species turnover between
 ground and canopy strata. The preference of canopy ants for mammalian
 urine also highlights the importance of interspecific interactions across
 highly unrelated animal taxa and emphasizes the need for a holistic
 understanding of biological networks to effectively conserve threatened
 tropical forest communities.
description: See the associated manuscript for detailed methods of data
 collection. In brief, ants were collected in the canopy
 and the ground from (or below) 12 trees in the Xishuangbanna National
 Nature Reserve in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan
 Province, China, using liquid baited pitfall traps with three different
 food sources (sugar water, urine water, and water).
description: This revised README file was generated on 2024-03-04 by Benjamin D.
 Blanchard. GENERAL INFORMATION 1. Title of Dataset: Preference for
 mammalian urine is higher in the canopy than on the ground in a tropical
 rainforest ant community in Yunnan, China 2. Author Information A.
 Corresponding Author Contact Information Name: Benjamin D. Blanchard
 Institution: Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, CAS Address: CAS Key
 Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, XTBG, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
 Menglun, Mengla, Yunnan 666303, China Email:
 [benjamin@xtbg.ac.cn](mailto:benjamin@xtbg.ac.cn) 3. Date of data
 collection (single date, range, approximate date): 2022 4. Geographic
 location of data collection: Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China 5. Information
 about funding sources that supported the collection of the data: CAS PIFI
 2021PB0085, NSFC International (Regional) Cooperation and Exchange Project
 32161160324, and Advanced Field Course in Ecology and Conservation (XTBG,
 CAS) \##SHARING/ACCESS INFORMATION 1. Licenses/restrictions placed on the
 data: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain 2. Links to publications
 that cite or use the data: Blanchard, B. D., Dai, Q., Duan, M., Nie, Y.,
 Njoroge, D. M., & Nakamura, A. (2024). Preference for mammalian urine
 is higher in the canopy than on the ground in a tropical rainforest ant
 community in Yunnan, China. Myrmecological News, 34:57-69. DOI:
 [https://doi.org/10.25849/myrmecol.news_034:057](https://doi.org/10.25849/myrmecol.news_034:057) 1. Links to other publicly accessible locations of the data: None 2. Links/relationshops to ancillary data sets: None 3. Was data derived from another source? No If yes, list source(s): 4. Recommended citation for this dataset: Blanchard, B. D., Dai, Q., Duan, M., Nie, Y., Njoroge, D. M., & Nakamura, A. (2024). Data from: Preference for mammalian urine is higher in the canopy than on the ground in a tropical rainforest ant community in Yunnan, China. Dryad Digital Repository. [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.73n5tb33w](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.73n5tb33w) DATA & FILE OVERVIEW This dataset includes XLSX- and csv-formatted raw collection information data from the study reported in the associated Myrmecological News article, as well as two csv-formatted files that are transformations of the raw data (one with only species, trap, and species abundance for each trap; one with only data used in the study retained). Lastly, the commented R file is provided. 1. File list: A. AFEC_DATA_Apr25.csv B. AFEC_DATA_Apr25.xlsx C. Ant_species.csv D. ants_Apr25.csv E. VerticalStratificationUrineSugarAnalyses.R 1. Relationship between the files, if important: None 2. Additional related data collected that was not included in the current data package: None 3. Are there multiple version of the dataset? No A. If yes, name of file(s) that was updated: NA i. Why was the file updated? NA ii. When was the file updated? NA \######################################################################### DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: AFEC_DATA_Apr25.csv 1. Number of variables: 16 [considering Species names collectively as a single variable - see below] 2. Number of cases/rows: 144 3. Variable List: * Collection_Code: Unique code for tree (#1-12), stratum (A = Canopy, B = Ground; 1 or 2 corresponds to replicate #), and treatment (C = Control, S = Sugar, N = Urine) (e.g., T1A1C = Tree 1 Canopy Replicate 1 Control) * Accession_Number: Unique collection code * Trap_Date: Date pitfall trapped installed (left for 48 hours before collection), in Year.Month.Date format * Season: Tropical season (Dry or Wet; all Dry for these data) * Stratum: Forest stratum (Canopy = canopy crown, Ground = in the soil) * Treatment: Pitfall trap liquid food type (Control = water, Sugar = sugar water, Urine = urine water) * Tree: Unique code for tree (#1-12) * Tree_Species: Tree species (Parashorea chinensis [note, here listed with typo as "Pararashoria chinensis"] or Pseuduvaria trimera) * Tree_height_m: Estimated tree height from the ground in meters * Trap_height_m: Estimated trap height from the ground in meters * Tree_DBH_m: Measured tree diameter at breast height (DBH) in meters * Total_Abundance: Abundance of all individuals (ants + non-ant invertebrates) * Other_Species_Abundance: Abundance of non-ant invertebrates * Ant_Richness: Number of ant species * Ant_Abundance: Number of ant individuals * \[Species names: Species names in Genus_species format]: Number of individuals collected for each ant species 4. Missing data codes: NA 5. Specialized formats or other abbreviations used: None \######################################################################### DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: AFEC_DATA_Apr25.xlsx 1. Number of variables: 16 [considering Species names collectively as a single variable - see below] 2. Number of cases/rows: 144 3. Variable List: \[NOTE: Three rows with red values are samples that were removed from analyses due to trap spillage - see associated publication] \* Collection_Code: Unique code for tree (#1-12), stratum (A = Canopy, B = Ground; 1 or 2 corresponds to replicate #), and treatment (C = Control, S = Sugar, N = Urine) (e.g., T1A1C = Tree 1 Canopy Replicate 1 Control) \* Accession_Number: Unique collection code \* Trap_Date: Date pitfall trapped installed (left for 48 hours before collection), in Year.Month.Date format \* Season: Tropical season (Dry or Wet; all Dry for these data) \* Stratum: Forest stratum (Canopy = canopy crown, Ground = in the soil) \* Treatment: Pitfall trap liquid food type (Control = water, Sugar = sugar water, Urine = urine water) \* Tree: Unique code for tree (#1-12) \* Tree_Species: Tree species (Parashorea chinensis [note, here listed with typo as "Pararashoria chinensis"] or Pseuduvaria trimera) \* Tree_height_m: Estimated tree height from the ground in meters \* Trap_height_m: Estimated trap height from the ground in meters \* Tree_DBH_m: Measured tree diameter at breast height (DBH) in meters \* Total_Abundance: Abundance of all individuals (ants + non-ant invertebrates) \* Other_Species_Abundance: Abundance of non-ant invertebrates \* Ant_Richness: Number of ant species \* Ant_Abundance: Number of ant individuals \* [Species names: Species names in Genus_species format]: Number of individuals collected for each ant species 1. Missing data codes: NA 2. Specialized formats or other abbreviations used: None \######################################################################### DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: Ant_species.csv 1. Number of variables: 2 [considering Species names collectively as a single variable - see below] 2. Number of cases/rows: 144 3. Variable List: * \[unlabeled]: Unique code for tree (#1-12), stratum (A = Canopy, B = Ground; 1 or 2 corresponds to replicate #), and treatment (C = Control, S = Sugar, N = Urine) (e.g., T1A1C = Tree 1 Canopy Replicate 1 Control) * \[Species names: Species names in Genus_species format]: Number of individuals collected for each ant species 4. Missing data codes: None 5. Specialized formats or other abbreviations used: None \######################################################################### DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: ants_Apr25.csv 1. Number of variables: 14 [considering Species names collectively as a single variable - see below] 2. Number of cases/rows: 144 3. Variable List: * \[unlabeled]: Label #1-144 to assign each row a unique numeral * Collection_Code: Unique code for tree (#1-12), stratum (A = Canopy, B = Ground; 1 or 2 corresponds to replicate #), and treatment (C = Control, S = Sugar, N = Urine) (e.g., T1A1C = Tree 1 Canopy Replicate 1 Control) * Stratum: Forest stratum (Canopy = canopy crown, Ground = in the soil) * Treatment: Pitfall trap liquid food type (Control = water, Sugar = sugar water, Urine = urine water) * Tree: Unique code for tree (#1-12) * Tree_Species: Tree species (Parashorea chinensis [note, here listed with typo as "Pararashoria chinensis"] or Pseuduvaria trimera) * Tree_height_m: Estimated tree height from the ground in meters * Trap_height_m: Estimated trap height from the ground in meters * Tree_DBH_m: Measured tree diameter at breast height (DBH) in meters * Total_Abundance: Abundance of all individuals (ants + non-ant invertebrates) * Other_Species_Abundance: Abundance of non-ant invertebrates * Ant_Richness: Number of ant species * Ant_Abundance: Number of ant individuals * \[Species names: Species names in Genus_species format]: Number of individuals collected for each ant species 4. Missing data codes: None 5. Specialized formats or other abbreviations used: None \######################################################################### DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: VerticalStratificationUrineSugarAnalyses.R 1. Description: R script detailing analyses