Data and R Code for: Ants in a Rosette-Shaped Plant: How Food, Habitat and Competition Influence patterns of visitation.

This repository contains the dataset, analytical code, and metadata associated with the manuscript "Ants in a Rosette-Shaped Plant: How Food, Habitat and Competition Influence patterns of visitation," submitted to the journal Diversity. The study investigates the multidimensional ecological drivers that modulate the foraging patterns of the dominant ant Camponotus termitarius on the rosette plant Eryngium chamissonis in the subtropical grasslands of the Brazilian Pampa. Specifically, it evaluates how microhabitat structure (vegetation density and plant size), the availability of liquid food rewards (hemipteran trophobionts and floral nectar), and interspecific competition with Camponotus rufipes interact to define ant visitation and spatial niche partitioning. Files included in this repository: Morales_psem_data.csv: The primary dataset containing field measurements from 115 focal plants, including ant foraging abundance, C. termitarius nest density, plant size, vegetation density, and trophobiont counts. Morales_et_al_code.R: The R script used for statistical analysis, including the fitting and validation of component generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) and the execution of the piecewise Structural Equation Modeling (pSEM) network. Morales_et_al_Readme.txt: A comprehensive metadata document detailing the study site coordinates, data collection methodology, variable definitions, and file structures.