DOI: 10.5061/dryad.jsxksn0fc
title: Data for: Stratification and recovery time jointly shape ant functional re-assembly in a Neotropical forest

description: Microhabitat differentiation of species communities such as vertical
 stratification in tropical forests contributes to species coexistence and
 thus biodiversity. However, little is known about how the extent of
 stratification changes during forest recovery and influences community
 reassembly. Environmental filtering determines community reassembly in
 time (succession) and in space (stratification), hence functional and
 phylogenetic composition of species communities are highly dynamic. It is
 poorly understood if and how these two concurrent filters – forest
 recovery and stratification – interact. In a tropical forest
 chronosequence in Ecuador spanning 34 years of natural recovery, we
 investigated the recovery trajectory of ant communities in three
 overlapping strata (ground, leaf litter, lower tree trunk) by quantifying
 13 traits, as well as the functional and phylogenetic diversity of the
 ants. We expected that functional and phylogenetic diversity increase with
 recovery time and that each ant community within each stratum shows a
 distinct functional reassembly. We predicted that traits related to ant
 diet show divergent trajectories reflecting an increase in niche
 differentiation with recovery time. On the other hand, traits related to
 the abiotic environment were predicted to show convergent trajectories due
 to a more similar microclimate across strata with increasing recovery age.
 Most of the functional traits and the phylogenetic diversity of the ants
 were clearly stratified, confirming previous findings. However, neither
 functional nor phylogenetic diversity increased with recovery time.
 Community-weighted trait means had complex relationships to recovery time
 and the majority were shaped by a statistical interaction between recovery
 time and stratum, confirming our expectations. However, most trait
 trajectories converged among strata with increasing recovery time
 regardless of whether they were related to ant diet or environmental
 conditions. We confirm the hypothesized interaction among environmental
 filters during the functional reassembly in tropical forests. Communities
 in individual strata respond differently to recovery, and possible filter
 mechanisms likely arise from both abiotic (e.g., microclimate) and biotic
 (e.g., diet) conditions. Since vertical stratification is prevalent across
 animal and plant taxa, our results highlight the importance of
 stratum-specific analysis in dynamic ecosystems and may generalize beyond
 ants.
description: This data sets contains the raw data and R-script associated with
 our research article. It contains ant collection data in a chronosequence
 in Ecuador, as well as measurements of the ant traits. Note that a similar
 version of the ant and trait dataset has already been uploaded here for
 another article: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.83bk3j9sk We collected ants by leaf-litter extraction with Winkler, handsampling on the ground and handsampling on tree trunks on 61 plots. Ants are recorded as  occurrences (=presence/absence) per method per plot (3 methods per plot). The methods represent different strata, and we analyse their traits and phylogeny across stratification and forest recovery. Our files include metadata on the plots, a list of the collected ant species and their occurence in each stratum, and a list of trait measurements on ant individuals. The ant traits were measured from individuals collected in our study site. A description of trait abbreviations can be found in our R-script. For more detailed descriptions of the sampling protocols, plot selection and statistical analysis can be found in the associated paper.  The R-script is annotated and describes our statistical procedures and used R-packages, and contains also descriptive information on the csv.-files.
description: Data can be accessed using Excel and R.