DOI: 10.5061/dryad.wh70rxwtt
title: Data from: Habitat-based biodiversity responses to macroclimate and edaphic factors in European fen ecosystems

description: Understanding large-scale drivers of biodiversity in palustrine wetlands
 is challenging due to the combined effects of macroclimate and local
 edaphic conditions. In boreal and temperate fen ecosystems, the influence
 of macroclimate on biodiversity is modulated by hydrological settings
 across habitats, making It difficult to assess their vulnerability to
 climate change. Here, we investigate the influence of macroclimate and
 edaphic factors on three Essential Biodiversity Variables across eight
 ecologically defined habitats that align with ecosystem classifications
 and red lists. We used 27,555 vegetation plot samples from European fens
 to assess the influence of macroclimate and groundwater pH predictors on
 the geographic distribution of each habitat type. Additionally, we modeled
 the relative influence of macroclimate, water pH and water table depth on
 community species richness and composition, focusing on 309 plant
 specialists. Our models reveal strong effects of mean annual temperature,
 diurnal thermal range and summer temperature on biodiversity variables,
 with contrasting differences among habitats. While macroclimatic factors
 primarily shape geographic distributions and species richness, edaphic
 factors emerge as the primary drivers of composition for vascular plants
 and bryophytes. Annual precipitation exhibits non-linear effects on fen
 biodiversity, with varying impact across habitats with different
 hydrological characteristics, suggesting a minimum requirement of 600 mm
 of annual precipitation for the occurrence of fen ecosystems. Our results
 anticipate potential impacts of climate warming on European fens, with
 predictable changes among habitat types and geographic regions. Moreover,
 we provide evidence that the drivers of biodiversity in boreal and
 temperate fens are closely tied to the ecological characteristics of each
 habitat type and the dispersal abilities of bryophytes and vascular
 plants. Given that the influence of macroclimate and edaphic factors on
 fen ecosystems is habitat-specific, climate change research and
 conservation actions should consider ecological differentiation within
 functional IUCN ecosystems at continental and regional scales.
description: Aggregated community data collected from vegetation databases and
 processed for biodiversity analysis R scripts for
 Ecosystem Distribution Modeling, analysis of species richness with BRTs,
 and analysis of compositional data with GDMs
description: # Data from: Habitat-based biodiversity responses to macroclimate and
 edaphic factors in European fen ecosystems
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.wh70rxwtt](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.wh70rxwtt) ## Description of the data and file structure The data contains two compressed folders: Folder **Code**: The R code used for the statistical analyses includes: * "1.EDMs.R" for replicating distribution models of habitat types across Europe, and the associated maps and figures * "2.BRTs.R" for replicating models of species richness using Boosted Regression Trees with a spatial autocovariate * "3.GDMs" for replicating models of species composition using Generalized Dissimilarity models * "figures.R" for replicating the figures created from BRTs and GDMs Folder **Data**: The data used for conducting the analyses includes: "Bio01.tif", "Bio02.tif", "Bio10.tif", "Bio12.tif" and "ph.tif": geo.tif files to upload the spatial predictors for the whole of Europe, where: * Bio01 = annual mean temperature (in ºC); Bio02 = Mean Diurnal Range or thermal range (in ºC); Bio10 = summer mean temperature (in ºC); Bio12 = annual precipitation (in mm \* 1000); pH: water pH spatial model "contrib\_effect.xlsx" summarizes the relative importance (in %) of predictors in the BRTs (needed to create the figures), where: * The rows show the relative importance (from 0 to 100) of predictors (pH, spatial autocovariate, plot area, water table depth, and bioclimatic variables as explained above. * The columns show the habitat EUNIS types (Q22, etc.) and the models for vascular plants (v) and bryophytes (bry). Columns ending in "e" reflect the interpretation of effects (positive or negative) from the response curves obtained from the models (shown in the Supplementary Material). "data.filtered.RData" includes all the occurrences used for computed Ecosystem Distribution Models, including: * name: EUNIS habitat types * X,Y: geographic coordinates in ETRS89 (UTM 30N) * Response: internal value to indicate the occurrence "fens3.RData" and "fens3.filtered.RData" contain plot species richness and additional data necessary for conducting the BRT models: * ID: database identification (unique values) * eunis: EUNIS type * vas: number of vascular plants recorded in the plot * bry: number of bryophytes recorded in the plot * bio1,bio2,bio10 and bio12: bioclimatic variables as described above * lat/long: geographic coordinates in decimal degrees * area: plot area (in square meters) * pH and wtd: water pH and water table depth (in cm) calculated for each plot * "mosses.RData" and "vascular.RData" contain the compositional matrices data for bryophytes and vascular plants, respectively, where: * siteCol is the unique ID for each plot, as required in the gdm R package * eunis indicates the habitat type * x,y include the geographic coordinates in ETRS89 (UTM 30N) * sp1,sp2, etc. correspond to the cover values (in %) of all species sampled in each plot ## Sharing/Access information Original community data was primarily obtained from the European Vegetation Archive, https://euroveg.org/eva-database/ ## Code/Software All R code was created in R version 4.1.3. All necessary packages are indicated in the R scripts and they are all compatible with R 4.1.3, but please note that we used BIOMOD2 R-3.5.1, and the newer versions (since 2023) have changed the commands of some functions.