DOI: 10.5061/dryad.73n5tb33c
title: Data from: Species-habitat networks reveal conservation implications that other community analyses do not detect

description: Grassland restoration is an important conservation intervention supporting
 declining insect pollinators in threatened calcareous grassland
 landscapes. While the success of restoration is often quantified using
 simple measures of diversity or similarity to a target communities, these
 measures do not capture fundamental aspect of community reconstruction.
 Here, we develop species-habitat networks that aim to define habitat level
 foraging dependencies of pollinators across restored grassland landscapes
 and compare their value to these more conventional measures of community
 restoration. We assessed this across Salisbury Plain (UK) which represents
 the largest area of chalk grassland in N.W. Europe, encompassing six
 distinct management types aimed at restoration and maintenance of
 species-rich calcareous grassland. Sites that were previously disturbed or
 reverting from arable agriculture were comparable in their pollinator
 abundance and species richness to those of ancient grasslands, although
 intensively managed grasslands supported low pollinator diversity.
 Applying our species-habitat network approach we found that pollinator
 communities in grasslands recovering from past military disturbance showed
 stronger modular associations with those in ancient grasslands compared to
 areas recovering from intensive agriculture. This highlights the
 importance of habitat history in shaping restoration trajectories. We
 propose that species-habitat networks should be part of the standard
 analytical toolkit assessing the effectiveness of restoration at landscape
 scale, particularly for mobile species such as insects.
description: The study took place in the Salisbury Plain Training Area,
 southern England. It covered six distinct grassland habitats across the
 area, representing a gradient of plant species richness and flower
 resources. These included ancient grassland, previously disturbed
 grassland, recently disturbed grassland, reverting grassland, intensive
 grazing, and ungrazed grassland. In 2010, 36
 permanently marked line transects (6 × 85 m) were established, one in the
 center of each habitat plot. Sampling occurred four times between May 30
 and September 19, 2011, monthly. Surveys took place between 10:00 and
 17:30, coinciding with major pollinator flight periods. The method
 followed the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (BMS) and adapted for
 bumblebee surveys. Surveys occurred under standardized environmental
 conditions (wind speed &lt;5.5 m/s, no rain, temperature &gt;17ºC
 if cloudy or &gt;13ºC if less than 40% cloud cover). Temperature,
 sunshine percentage, and wind speed were recorded. It took approximately
 two days to complete all transect counts for the 36 plots.
 During each survey, all butterflies and day-flying moths were
 identified and counted at the species level. Foraging bumblebees were also
 recorded to species level, and rare species were verified with voucher
 specimens. Bombus terrestris and B. lucorum were recorded collectively as
 they couldn't be reliably distinguished in the field. Summed counts
 were made for honeybees, solitary bees, and hoverflies. The first
 flowering plant visited by each bee or butterfly was recorded to species,
 enabling the construction of plant-pollinator interaction webs for each
 grassland type. Regarding flower resources, during each
 pollinator survey, eight 0.5 × 0.5 m quadrats were used, spaced equally
 along each transect. All flowering dicotyledonous plants were identified,
 and the number of flower units per species was counted. Flower units
 encompassed single flowers, multi-flowered stems, flower-heads, and
 umbels, providing estimates of timing, diversity, and abundance of floral
 resources available to pollinators in each grassland habitat throughout
 the season.
description: # Species-habitat networks reveal conservation implications that other
 community analyses do not detect
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.73n5tb33c](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.73n5tb33c) The dataset is derived from a study conducted in the Salisbury Plain Training Area in southern England, consisting of 36 permanently marked line transects across six distinct grassland habitats. These habitats represent a gradient of plant species richness and flower resource provision. The dataset includes detailed records of pollinator counts, specifying species, and flower abundance in each habitat. ## Description of the data and file structure The dataset is structured into two separate CSV files, each containing distinct types of information: **File 1: Interaction Data** * This file records the interactions between pollinators and flowering plants. It includes detailed counts of pollinators visiting flowers, specifying the pollinator species and the flower species they visited. Each row represents a specific interaction event, capturing the presence and frequency of different pollinators on various flower species within each habitat. **File 2: Flower Counts** * This file provides information about flower abundance within each of the studied grassland habitats. It documents the presence of different flowering plant species and quantifies their abundance. **Relationships Between Data Files:** * The data in csv file 1 (Interaction Data) is closely related to file 2 (Flower Counts) as it links plant-pollinator interactions with the corresponding flowering plant abundance. Researchers can use these two files together to analyze the interactions between pollinators and the available floral resources in different habitats. ## Code/Software This R script conducts comprehensive data analysis on measures of species richness, abundance, community similarity, network metrics, and species-habitat network structure within different grassland habitats.