DOI: 10.5061/dryad.dz08kps9k
title: Data from: Temporal dynamics of bark and wood functional traits in determining invertebrate communities during coarse and fine woody debris decomposition

description: Plant functional traits act as environmental filters, influencing
 invertebrate community assembly during decomposition processes and thus
 biogeochemical cycling. Within a plant, bark and wood exhibit distinct
 functional trait characteristics, and these traits further vary among
 different sizes of deadwood, such as coarse woody debris (CWD) and fine
 woody debris (FWD), as well as different decomposition stages. Despite
 this, studies on deadwood biodiversity and decomposition often ignore
 differences between bark and wood. We examined how bark and wood
 functional traits structure invertebrate communities during deadwood
 decomposition using a 42-month experiment with 41 woody species in
 subtropical forests. We hypothesized that i) invertebrate abundance and
 diversity are higher for resource-acquisitive traits than for
 resource-conservative traits; ii) bark traits are more important for FWD
 and wood traits are more important for CWD in determining invertebrate
 communities, and iii) the effect of bark traits on invertebrate
 communities dominates during early decomposition stage, while the effect
 of wood traits on invertebrate communities dominates during later decay
 stages. Our results demonstrated size- and stage-dependent trait effects
 on invertebrate communities. The bark economics spectrum (BES) was
 positively related to invertebrate abundance and richness during early
 decomposition (18 months), with stronger effects for FWD than for CWD. In
 contrast, the wood economic spectrum (WES) influenced invertebrate
 diversity only in CWD but not FWD. Effects of WES persisted through both
 early and later decomposition stages (42 months), but the effect strength
 and direction showed strong site dependency. Synthesis. Our results show
 that bark traits are important drivers of invertebrate diversity in
 deadwood during early decomposition for both FWD and CWD, whereas effects
 of wood traits are longer-lasting, but restricted to CWD. These findings
 expand our understanding of the afterlife effect of plant traits by
 demonstrating that bark and wood traits play distinct roles for
 invertebrate community assembly, while their relative importance shifts
 during deadwood decay. Studies of deadwood-decomposer succession and
 plant-invertebrate interactions should therefore consider bark and wood
 traits.
description: # Data from: Temporal dynamics of bark and wood functional traits in
 determining invertebrate communities during coarse and fine woody debris
 decomposition Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.dz08kps9k](10.5061/dryad.dz08kps9k) ## Description of the
 data and file structure ### Files and variables #### File:
 Ci_et_al_dataset.xlsx **Description:**  This dataset includes two sheets:
 (1) Fauna, documenting temporal records of invertebrate abundance
 (excluding termites and ants ) and richness, and  mass loss percentages
 across sampling intervals, and (2) Trait, containing bark and wood
 functional traits of coarse woody debris (CWD) and fine woody debris
 (FWD), including wood density, carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus
 (P) content, wood dry matter content, bark thickness, bark dry matter
 content, and bark C, N, and P concentrations. #### Variables Column
 headers of the dataset of this data (Column headers specify measured
 variables with units in parentheses):  #### Fauna sheet * species (Column
 A): species' Latin names * site (Column B): incubation site * size
 (Column C): deadwood size, 5cm represents fine wood debris, 20 cm
 represents coarse wood debris * time  (Column D): decomposition time *
 Total abundance: the abundance of deadwood invertebrates excluding
 termites and ants  * richness: the richness of deadwood invertebrates  *
 Mass_loss (%): mass loss of deadwood after each sampling time #### Trait
 sheet * species: species' Latin names * size: deadwood size, 5cm
 represents fine wood debris, 20 cm represents coarse wood debris * BDMC:
 bark dry matter content * BT: bark thickness  * BN: bark nitrogen
 concentration * BP: bark phosphorus concentration * BC: bark carbon
 concentration * WD: wood density * WDMC:  wood dry matter content * WN:
 wood nitrogen concentration * WP: wood phosphorus concentration * WC: wood
 carbon concentration * BES: the values of the first principal component
 (PC1) after PCA analysis of five bark traits (bark thickness, bark dry
 matter content, bark carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus concentration),
 representing the bark economics spectrum * WES: the values of the first
 principal component (PC1) after PCA analysis of five wood traits (wood
 density, wood dry matter content, wood carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus
 concentration), representing the wood economics spectrum.