Deer enhance positive effects of canopy gaps on temperate forest biodiversity and multifunctionality

Le résumé fourni par la source

This repository contains the data and R code supporting the manuscript “Deer enhance positive effects of canopy gaps on temperate forest biodiversity and multifunctionality.” The study used a factorial field experiment in the University Forest of Würzburg, Germany, to test how canopy gaps and roe deer presence interactively affect biodiversity and multifunctionality in a temperate forest. The experiment comprised 75 forest patches, including 21 canopy-gap patches and 54 closed-canopy patches. Each patch contained one fenced plot excluding roe deer and one paired unfenced plot allowing roe deer access, resulting in 150 plots. The repository includes plant-community data, processed aboveground and belowground metabarcoding OTU tables, taxonomic information, soil pH, and 12 ecosystem-function metrics related to productivity, decomposition, nutrient and carbon cycling, regeneration, and consumer activity. It also contains the data used to calculate plant, aboveground invertebrate, and belowground invertebrate diversity at Hill-number orders q = 0, 1, and 2, as well as correlation-corrected multifunctionality indices at the same orders. The accompanying R scripts reproduce the data preparation, taxonomic filtering, diversity calculations, multifunctionality calculations, mixed-effects models, planned treatment contrasts, piecewise structural equation models, analyses of individual ecosystem-function metrics, and associated tables and figures. A master script executes the complete analytical workflow in the required order. Additional information on file structure, variable definitions, treatment coding, software dependencies, and script execution is provided in the README file.

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